Arunachal Students’ Union stages state-wide protest over offspring issue

ITANAGAR: As the social justice & empowerment and tribal affairs (SJETA) department failed to come up with a draft on the ST status of children born to APST mothers and non-APST fathers, The All Arunachal Pradesh Student’s Union (AAPSU) staged state-wide protest on Tuesday.

Thousands of members and students joined the protest rally in Itanagar. Similar protests were organized by the district students’ unions across the state, demanding that the government come out with an “immediate draft of an ordinance on the offspring issue.”

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While condemning SJETA and the joint consultative committee (JCC) for adopting dilly-dallying tactics to draft an ordinance on the offspring issue, the AAPSU demanded a law be enacted to take stringent action against those officers who issued scheduled tribe (ST) certificates to non-APSTs through illegal means.

The AAPSU has outright rejected the draft submitted earlier by the SJETA department, saying that the draft did not incorporate the points raised by the union.

Earlier, an 11-member joint consultative meeting was chaired by SJETA Minister Alo Libang on 8 September, during which it was resolved that the suggestions and recommendations of the members would be incorporated and placed before the committee in the next meeting of the SJETA department.

The SJETA department postponed the JCC meeting twice. One was supposed to be held on 29 September and the other one on 1 October. A third meeting is scheduled to be held on 8 October.

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