Image Courtesy: sentinelassam.com
On December 4, Ronald Sapa Tlau, from Mizoram and belonging to the Congress party directed a question in Rajya Sabha towards the Ministry of Home Affairs. He sought information from the Ministry on number of persons identified as illegal intruders and deported back in the last 4 years. He further asked whether Government has plans to resume soon two failed Indo-Bangladesh dialogues 1992 and 1995 on repatriating Chakmas from Northeast States. To this question, the government responded in the negative.
To the former question, the Ministry gave some data that indicated that up to October 31, West Bengal had the highest number of deportations recorded, at 8,038. Surprisingly, the number of ‘intruders apprehended on Indo-Bangladesh Border handed over to police and deported by Border Security Force’ in Assam since 2015 is only 43. The highest number of deportations to Bangladesh took place in 2015 when 3,426 people were deported from the states of West Bengal, Assam, Meghalaya, Tripura and Mizoram.
The situation that has engulfed Assam in terms of NRC has seen more than 19 lakh people exclude from the final NRC. These people are now running helter-skelter to prove their citizenship before Foreigners Tribunals. In this background, it is surprising that in the past 4 years only 43 people have been deported from Assam, back to Bangladesh.
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