Although deportation of illegal Bangladeshi infiltrators remained the main poll plank for most of the parties in Assam, yet the successive governments run by different parties in the state could deport only 29,795 illegal foreigners so far.
Assam Industry minister Chandra Mohan Patowary said this on Monday while replying to a question in the Assam legislative Assembly. A total of 91,609 persons have so far been declared or convicted as foreigner by different Foreigners’ Tribunals in Assam. The Minister further said that out of this only 1,037 declared foreigners are living in six detention camps of Assam. The 1,037 also includes 31 children, he added.
“According to the data received from Border wing of Assam Police, the foreigners tribunals have declared 91,609 persons as foreigners till March 31, 2018. While 128 of them have been deported till August 31, 2018, four other of them have also been expelled during this period. Prior to this, the State Government has pushed back a total of 29,663 declared foreigners and convicted persons to Bangladesh till December 31, 2017,” said Patowary.
“The 1,037 declared foreigners are kept under detention in detention camps at Goalpara, Kokrajhar, Silchar, Dibrugarh, Jorhat and at Tezpur, he informed the House. The revelation by the minister assumes significance considering the fact that Assam had witnessed a six year long students’ movement from 1979 to 1985 seeking to detect and deport the illegal Bangladeshi foreigners living in the state.
A total of 855 young men and women were killed and hundreds of others were maimed by police and security forces during the period for taking part in the movement and agitating against the then Congress led Government. It may be mentioned here that the BJP led Assam Government is now updating the National Register of Citizens (NRC) which is expected to detect the illegal Bangladeshi infiltrators living in the State.
The government had in August this year published the draft NRC that included the names of 2,89,836,77 people of the state but kept names of 40,07,707 people out of the citizenship register for some ‘discrepancies’.
