The United Naga Council (UNC) and the Co-ordinating Committee on Manipur Integrity (COCOMI) have jointly begun to take up measures against the “influx of migrants and illegal immigrants in Manipur”.
The COCOMI is a conglomerate of the United Committee Manipur (UCM), the CCSK, the HERICOUN, the LIPUL etc., while the UNC is the apex Naga body in the state of Manipur.
Addressing a joint press conference on June 5 at Manipur Press Club in Imphal, leaders of the UNC and the COCOMI informed that they had submitted a joint memorandum to chief Minister N Biren Singh on June 4.
“We the civil society organisations of the original native people of Manipur would like to draw your kindly attention to the pressing issue related to the unregulated inflow of migrants and illegal immigrants to Manipur state since 1947 and its threats to the native people territorially, economically and socio-politically,” said the joint memorandum of the UNC and the COCOMI to the chief minister.
The memorandum then said that Manipur has been witnessing influx of “non-native people” for the last many decades and the “menace” is escalating with time. The UNC and the COCOMI further said that many of the present “socio-political unrests” in the state are directly or indirectly the consequences of the influx of “migrants and illegal immigrants from neighbouring state/countries, especially Myanmar, Bangladesh and Nepal”.
The memorandum further said that the native people of Manipur can no longer afford to remain silent as this menace has been adversely impacting the future security and well-being of the “original natives”. The UNC and the COCOMI also said that it has adversely impacted the native demography, social order and geographical topography which is often manifested in racial, ethnic, religious and political tensions in the state.
The UNC and the COCOMI then alleged that “these illegal immigrants have not only illegally entered Manipur state but also continuously keep on claiming ownership over the native people’s land”.
“Many unrecognised villages have been mushrooming in some specific hill districts of Manipur in the past few decades and our state government remains as silent spectator,” the memorandum said.
Some points, which were termed as the “most important resolutions”, have been adopted after several rounds of discussion sessions by the “civil society organisations of the native people of Manipur state”.
The first point is to have the National Register of Citizenship (NRC) to scientifically identify the illegal immigrants to push them back and check further illegal infiltration into the state. The second point says that a competent state population commission is highly essential at this juncture to be established by the Manipur government at the earliest.
The memorandum then said that without verification, random village recognition must be stopped and a process of derecognition of illegal and fake villages with a cut-off base year must be put into proper regulation “as it has become a burden and a parasite for the government exchequer and depriving the rightful share of the genuine inhabitants”.
The memorandum then included a chart containing number of villages in districts. The memorandum added that for “the Meiteis and the Naga dominated areas the number of villages remains constant”.
