Staff REPORTER
Itanagar, Aug 5: The Arunachal ST Bachao Andolan Committee (ASTBAC) has urged State’s Law and Sports Minister Kento Jini, who also chairs the High-Power Committee (HPC) on the APST offspring issue, to convene a meeting at the earliest. The committee warned that if no meeting is held, the chairman should step down from the post.
Addressing a press conference here on Wednesday, ASTBAC chairman Sol Dodum said the committee has been actively carrying out its responsibilities to examine, collect documents and recommend measures regarding the re-verification of APST certificates and the non-APST offspring issue.
Dodum said the committee has so far visited Namsai, Tezu and Roing, where it collected relevant documents and interacted with local stakeholders. The team is also planning to visit Tirap, Changlang, Longding and other districts as part of its ongoing exercise.
He stated that the committee has already begun verifying the collected documents and has observed several issues during the process. "Before undertaking further visits, we wanted to meet the HPC chairman to brief him on our activities, share the challenges faced during the verification process and discuss the way forward. However, despite our efforts, we have not been able to meet him, and no meeting has been convened so far," Dodum said.
He urged Jini to convene a meeting on the issue within the next few days so that the committee can proceed with its work in a coordinated manner.
Dodum also appealed to local residents of the districts concerned to extend their cooperation and come forward with relevant information and documents to support the verification process in the larger interest of the state.