Over 600 Inner Line Pass defaulters detected in 48 hours in Nagaland prompt the Naga Students Federation to call it a major system failure.
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DIMAPUR — The detection of over 600 Inner Line Pass (ILP) defaulters in just two days has given rise to serious questions, with the Inner Line Regulation Commission of Naga Students Federation (NSF) calling it a glaring sign of prolonged enforcement failure rather than a success story.
In a statement issued on Monday, the commission maintained that the identification of 436 defaulters on April 10 and 208 more on April 11 by Nagaland Police reveals how deeply violations have gone unchecked, with many non-indigenous individuals allegedly living, working and running businesses in the state without valid ILPs for extended periods.
“This is not a law-and-order achievement—it is evidence of systemic collapse,” the statement read, adding that the scale of detection points to years of weak monitoring and regulatory lapses.
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The commission also flagged what it described as a dilution of the law itself, stressing that the correct legal term is “Inner Line Pass” as defined under the Bengal Eastern Frontier Regulation, 1873—not “permit,” which it said reduces the system to a routine administrative formality and undermines its restrictive intent.
Raising concerns over the depth of non-compliance, the NSF body stated that many of the defaulters were not recent entrants but had already embedded themselves in local economic activities, impacting indigenous livelihoods while operating outside the legal framework.
It squarely blamed multiple authorities—including district administrations, labour and trade licensing bodies, and urban local bodies—for failing to integrate ILP verification into routine regulatory processes, thereby enabling widespread violations.
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Calling for urgent structural reforms, it proposed mandatory linkage of ILP verification with business licensing and employment, creation of a centralised and digitised ILP database for real-time checks, and fixing accountability where lapses have occurred.
Stressing that the ILP is a legal safeguard rather than a symbolic measure, the commission warned that continued weak enforcement would only entrench violations further.
“The question is no longer whether violations exist, but how long they were allowed to persist—and who is responsible,” it added.