The Hindu : Front Page : Gogoi dares AGP on illegal migrants issue

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Sunday, Aug 05, 2007
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Gogoi dares AGP on illegal migrants issue

Sushanta Talukdar

Tarun Gogoi

Guwahati: Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi on Saturday reiterated that all those who were recently pushed back into the State by Arunachal Pradesh and Nagaland were Indians and not Bangaldeshis as alleged by the Opposition and youth organisations.

The Government would publish a list of such people within a month. “I stand by my statement they are all Indian citizens,” he told reporters here.

Had these people been foreigners, Arunachal Pradesh and Nagaland would have dealt with them in accordance with the Foreigners Act, 1946 instead of pushing them into Assam. “Most of them entered these States with inner-line permits issued by the respective States. There is no need for identification since they had gone with valid inner-line permits.”

Still, as allegations were made through newspapers, he instructed the Superintendents of Police to verify their citizenship and they were found to be Indians possessing valid documents as per the provisions of the Assam Accord.

No specific complaint

Mr. Gogoi said nobody came forward to specifically complain or identify foreigners. He challenged Asom Gana Parishad chief Brindaban Goswami to prove that those pushed back by the neighbouring States were illegal Bangladeshi migrants.

The All-Assam Students Union, the Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha, the Asom Jatiyatabadi Yuba Chatra Parishad, the AGP and the Bharatiya Janata Party have been alleging that thousands of suspected Bangladeshi infiltrators were pushed back into Assam last month and the Congress-led Government here was protecting those “foreigners.”

The BJP on Saturday launched a programme of identification of illegal Bangladeshi migrants.

Mr. Gogoi said the government would form circle-level vigilance committees to monitor the presence of any illegal migrant. It would invite all political parties and student and youth organisations including the AASU, the All-Assam Minority Students’ Union to become members of the committee.

About the steps to solve the problem of detection and deportation of infiltrators, Mr. Gogoi said the Cabinet on Saturday discussed the modalities of updating the National Register of Citizens. It was decided to constitute a Cabinet sub-committee to work out the draft modalities.

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