Imphal, July 28: Chief Minister Okram Ibobi Singh has invited suggestions regarding the introduction of an Act to control the influx of foreigners in the State, today taking advantage of the zero hour on the last day of the Budget session.
The State government is awaiting suggestions from experts or the legal fraternity to determine an Act to control the influx of foreigners in the State before the implementation of the Inner Line Permit.
He said that, in the past one week of Budget session, the House has discussed various issues raised by several organisations including the demand for implementation of the ILP, killing of innocent people by UGs, in public interest among others.
Coming to the much criticised police action against students and women agitators of the ILP in the past few days, the Chief Minister said it was infact a painful incident and further acknowledge that the State’s law enforcing agency had been harsh.
The Chief Minister maintained that the State government is not against implementation of ILP.
He however said that the Bengal Eastern Frontier Regulation Act 1873 was implemented only in Assam and its remote pockets like the Naga Hills, North-East Frontier Agency, and Khasi & Jaintia Hills of Meghalaya.
Those hill areas of Assam have become the present day Nagaland, Mizoram, Arunachal-Pradesh and Meghalaya States, however, the States of Manipur and Tripura were princely independent kingdoms before their mergers with the Indian Union, he observed.
O Ibobi said his Government needs permission from the Center to implement ILP in the State.
It is to re-implement a previous Act which was repealed by the then Commissioner Himat Singh in 1950, he said.
In 2011, the Assembly had discussed its implementation and taken a private resolution, and again in June 2013, two MLAs I Ibohalbi and Th Shyamkumar had moved private member resolution to urge the Central government to implement the ILP in the interest of the people of Manipur, he said.
We have sent resolutions to the Center from time to time during the UPA regime, he said.
Now as the NDA has come back to power in the Center, the whole process needs to be reset, he said.
During the last three – four month, the State government has been unable to insist upon the Union government, he added.
Ibobi further said that the government had even considered going to New Delhi for pressurising the Central Government for implementation of ILP.
The Government knows the sentiment of the agitators for ILP and our 60 MLAs are elected by the public too.
If necessary, we will also include the members of the ILP Demand Committee in pressurising the Government of India, he said.
He appealed to the students that it is not wise for them to divert their energies to the issue of ILP or any other issue because these crucial days for their study.
Meanwhile, he also clarified on the defunct state of the Manipur Human Rights Commission and said it stopped functioning since 2010.
There was no eligible person for the post of the chairperson after the retirement of Justice W.A. Shishak.
Following the instruction from the Union Law Ministry, the government has engaged the Assam Human Right Commission for holding the dual charge of the State. But it was not possible, O Ibobi continued.
Ibobi underscored in the affirmative that from August onwards, the MHRC will be functional, as informed by the Law Ministry.
Meanwhile, during the Zero hour the Thangmeiband MLA Kh Joykisan drew the attention of the House on the molestation case of girl athletes by an instructor of the Sports Authority of India.
The MLA said, such incidents should not happen in the future, particularly in the field of sports.
The authority concerned has transferred the accused after an FIR was registered against him; however, instead of just transferring him, he must be dismissed from his post, he said before adding that such heinous crime in the sports arena is really unfortunate.