The North East Students’ Organisation (NESO), comprising eight leading students bodies from the region, on Monday staged a protest against influx from neighbouring countries and sought protection for the indigenous communities.

The organisations also submitted memoranda to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Union home minister Amit Shah and the chief ministers of the respective northeastern states, urging the formation of a special commission to revise electoral rolls and delete the names of illegal immigrants within a fixed time frame, among other demands.

The NESO comprises the All Assam Students’ Union, Khasi Students’ Union, Garo Students’ Union, All Arunachal Pradesh Students’ Union, Naga Students’ Federation, All Manipur Students’ Union, Mizo Zirlai Pawl and the Twipra Students’ Federation.

These student bodies on Monday staged dharnas in Guwahati, Shillong, Tura, Itanagar, Kohima, Imphal, Aizawl and Agartala.

Members of the student organisations, holding placards and banners, sought steps to evict illegal immigrants because the region was “not a dumping ground” for infiltrators whose presence was hurting both the security and future of the indigenous communities.

The issue of influx had been dominating headlines since May after the Centre, following the April 22 Pahalgam terror attack, issued directive to the states and UTs to identify and deport illegal immigrants.

In the three-page memorandum to the Prime Minister, NESO chairman Samuel B. and secretary general Mutsikhoyo Yhobu have stated that a great part of the crisis in the Northeast “relates with the unabated influx of illegal migrants from the immediate neighbour, which has brought a serious demographic change in the Northeast region in particular and other parts of the country in general”.

“The continued influx of refugees and undocumented migrants from different countries has created a sense of insecurity and apprehension among the indigenous people that their culture, tradition, political identity, their con
trol over land and existence itself, will be swallowed up by the outsiders. The unguarded porous border has been used by fundamentalist groups to infiltrate into the region thereby further threatening the existence of the indigenous people.”

It further added: “There is every reason to believe that there are already a considerable number of militant fundamentalist groups operating in the Northeast with a design to over-run the whole of the Northeast according to their whims and fancies.”

The Northeast is witnessing low per capita income, rising poverty and unemployment affecting several lakhs of people,” the memorandum stated, urging the Centre to “adopt a proactive policy in the form of a ‘White Paper’ rather than a reactive policy to this issue”.

“The need of the hour is to understand that it is no longer a humanitarian problem but a security problem, which has become a hydra-headed monster. Time has come to deal with it assertively with renewed/effective bilateral relations with the neighbouring countries,” it said.