Assam amends illegal foreigners notice

GUWAHATI - The Assam government issued a notification Tuesday amending the Quit India Notice order for those identified as illegal foreigners and has asked the authorities to immediately arrest such persons.

Announcing this in the state assembly, Accord Implementation and Revenue Minister Bhumidhar Barman said that after the Foreigners Tribunal had declared a person an illegal foreigner he/she would be sent to a detention camp and then pushed across the border.

The minister said only 105 illegal Bangladeshi migrants were pushed back since 2001, although 10,597 people were identified as foreigners.

“There is a technical problem that after the Foreigners Tribunals identify the people as illegal foreigners, the authorities issue them a ‘Quit India Notice’ asking them to leave the country within a week. But in most cases, once the notices are served, the people do the vanishing trick and hence the problem,” the minister said.

Barman said with the notification, “once arrested, the illegal foreigner would be lodged at a detention camp until such time he or she is taken to the border and pushed back”.

As a stop gap arrangement, the district jail at the western district of Goalpara would be used as a detention camp.

In the absence of a formal deportation agreement between the two countries, a person identified by the tribunal as an illegal Bangladeshi is taken to the border by police and pushed back at night under the cover of darkness.

In most cases, the migrant later resurfaces in Assam by sneaking back to the Indian border through a different entry point.

The issue of illegal infiltration from Bangladesh is a major issue in Assam with allegations that unabated influx of migrants was a threat to the state’s demographic profile. Dhaka has denied the charge.