A large number of students of Brighter Academy Higher Secondary School staged a protest at the school gate at New Checkon in Imphal East today, raising demands for “No NRC, No Census,” an NRC update with 1951 as the base year, and “No IDP Settlement, No Census.”
The protest was organised under the aegis of the Students’ Wing of the Campaign for Just and Fair Delimitation (JFD).
A Class IX student participating in the protest raised slogans in support of the demands and urged the authorities to address concerns surrounding the proposed Census exercise and the implementation and updating of the National Register of Citizens (NRC).
A member of the JFD Students’ Wing said the agitation would continue over the NRC and Census issues, reiterating that 1951 should be adopted as the base year for updating the NRC. The member also referred to agreements signed between the government and stakeholders in 1980 and 1994, stating that the present agitation was linked to issues associated with those agreements.
Meanwhile, local women and volunteers of the NRC Demand Committee, Moirang Sub-Division, again shut down the offices of the Sub-Divisional Officer (SDO), Treasury and Sub-Registrar at Moirang on Wednesday.
The offices had earlier been closed as part of the committee’s ongoing agitation. However, after they reopened, protesters once again shut them down, disrupting their normal functioning.
The NRC Demand Committee, Moirang, has been spearheading an agitation seeking implementation and updating of the NRC and raising related demands in the Moirang area under the JFD.
Sit-in protests were also held at Malom Bazar and Patsoi Bazar under the aegis of the JFD as part of the continuing agitation.
The protests form part of the ongoing mobilisation by the JFD and Students’ Wing and other supporting groups over the NRC, Census and the settlement and rehabilitation of internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Manipur.
