Student group serves 3-day ultimatum to rollback Tibetan Rehabilitation Policy in Arunachal
DHARAMSALA, July 11: Students’ United Movement of All Arunachal (SUMAA) has served a three-day ultimatum demanding, among other things, immediate rollback of the Tibetan Rehabilitation Policy, 2014.
SUMAA has submitted a memorandum to the West Kameng deputy commissioner earlier on July 8 and has threatened to launch a ‘rigorous movement’ if its demands are not met within three days, reports The Arunachal Times.
Apart from the immediate rollback of the Tibetan Rehabilitation Policy, 2014, SUMAA has also demanded the cancellation of the PR/ST certificates issued illegally to Tibetan refugees; surrender of trading licences obtained by Tibetan refugees; a written undertaking from the Central Tibetan Administration not to claim Indian citizenship and STC/PRC in Arunachal Pradesh; and deportation of Tibetan refugees to the demarcated camps, the report added.
According to the report, the organization has launched the drive over the issues after the expiry of the 50-day ultimatum it had served to the state government to make its (the government’s) stand clear on the issue of Tibetan refugees.
SUMMA has further urged the DC to furnish ‘the data/dossier of Tibetans refugees in the West Kameng district’ and added that they would not withdraw its ‘Camp Bomdila’ till its demands are met, the report noted.
The Tibetan Rehabilitation Policy Act was formalized by the Central government in 2014. Arunachal Pradesh decided to implement the central policy in August last year
Arunachal Pradesh has the fourth largest population of Tibetans in India and as the self-styled student group had vowed to take matters into their own hands if the government doesn’t roll back the Tibetan Rehabilitation Policy in October last year as well and staged an ‘Anti Tibetan Refugee Movement’ protest rally from Ganga to Mithun Gate in Arunachal Pradesh’s capital, Itanagar.
The group also released a list last year of all the shops owned by Tibetans with their names in the Capital Complex area after checking documents of all the shop owners in the complex and openly threatened to target and forcefully evict them. This prompted the District Magistrate to declare the ‘Anti Tibetan Refugee Movement’ illegal.
