HYC threatens to shut down Secretariat if students don’t get scholarship

Shillong, Nov 10: The Hynniewtrep Youth Council (HYC) on Thursday threatened to close down the Secretariat if the government fails to credit the scholarship to the respective bank accounts of students.

Hundreds of students from different colleges and universities joined the protest staged by HYC outside the Shillong Law College against the delay of the government to release the scholarship for 2021-2022.

HYC education secretary Enlang Sawian said though the Education Department had come out with an order to release the scholarship money, students “will not believe it until the amount is credited to their respective accounts”.

“We will give six days’ time to the state government to deposit the scholarship amount to the bank accounts of the students failing which, we will again intensify our agitation to the extent of even locking the secretariat,” said Sawian.

Meanwhile, general secretary of HYC Roykupar Synrem said that the council will always support the students or teachers’ community as it wants to see that Meghalaya as a whole comes out on top when it comes to education.

Synrem said that as per RTI reports, the Centre, since 2021, has already released the fund meant for scholarship, “but it is sad to see that the state had kept the funds meant for students till November 9, 2022”.

“Are democratic protests declared illegal in the state of Meghalaya? Are we living in a democracy or in a police state,” read a placard displayed during a surprise protest staged by HYC in the city on Thursday.

The protest was against the police action on its members, who protested peacefully against the government’s failure to fulfil the nine-point demands that include implementation of Inner Line Permit (ILP) at Rambrai in West Khasi Hills district on Wednesday, and the imposition of Section 144 CrPC, which bans assembly of more than five persons, in the entire Shillong city.

Activists of the HYC gathered in front of the U Kiang Nangbah statue at Civil Hospital junction and started shouting slogans and displaying placards to condemn the police highhandedness that led to the injury of three members.

The other placards read: “CM and government are not above people’s right to expression in a democracy”, “Is intolerance a way forward for this NPP led government in Meghalaya”, “Mr Conrad Sangma who authorised the police in Meghalaya to stop the peaceful right to expression”.

Synrem said they highly condemned the police action at Rambrai.

He said the members of the Rambrai circle as part of the ‘Save Hynniewtrep Mission’ were holding placards to ask the chief minister Conrad K Sangma as to what had happened to the nine-point demands put forth before his government.

When the members reached the place where the CM was supposed to pass through to inaugurate the Rambrai C&RD block, the police forcefully took away all the placards and flags of the organization and during the confrontation, three members were injured.