Aizawl, March 8: The Young Mizo Association (YMA) has served non-Mizos staying in Mizoram without proper authorisation with an ultimatum to leave the state by April 7. The association has also urged the Mizos not to encourage the non-Mizos to stay in the state by doing business with them or employing them for work that is not stipulated in their inner-line permits.
A statement issued by the central executive committee of the YMA said the ultimatum was issued to pursue its 2004 objective to ?safeguard the land and its people?.
Justifying the ultimatum, the organisation said the non-Mizos had often caused trouble for the locals and the issue had turned critical in recent times. It also asked the Mizos not to let out their shops and stalls to the non-Mizos or do business with them.
The statement asked the people not to obtain inner-line permits for the non-Mizos without proper reason. The association said those who have inner-line permits should stay within the permitted limits in terms of duration and as long as the reason for the permit is valid.
When contacted, city police said they have a standing order from the government to carry out checks on non-Mizos in the city to ensure that no one stayed in the state illegally.
A source said the police have already carried out a search for illegal residents twice this year and evicted 40 people who had no permits. A senior police officer, however, said the organisation should not involve itself in what is essentially a government matter.
?It is like taking the law into their hands. The government has an agency that can deal with this problem. If they really cared about the matter, they could have given some advice to either the home minister or the director-general of police. In my opinion, these people are attention-seekers who cannot do without attention of some kind,? he said. The officer also warned that the ultimatum could trigger communal trouble if the government did not react immediately.
Tourist permits are issued for a week, while permits for workers from outside the state are valid for six months. The permits can, however, be renewed if required.
Mizoran has been witnessing an illegal influx of Myanmarese nationals from the neighbouring country. For long, the local people of Mizoram had ignored the matter. However, things flared up when a Mizo child was raped by a Myanmarese national on July 17 last year. Some local people had served a quit notice on foreigners and many of them fled.