KOLKATA, Oct 5 - Gowher Rizvi, the special advisor to Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, today said that India needs to prove that the illegal immigrants in the northeastern States are indeed Bangladeshis.
The controversy over illegal immigrants in the northeastern States has emerged as a major issue and some of the States have demanded a National Register of Citizens (NRC) on the lines of Assam.
�At present, they (people whose names are not there in the NRC list) are residents of India and India should prove that they are residents of Bangladesh, not India,� Rizvi, also a historian, said at an interactive session at the �India Today Conclave � East� here.
On the Rohingyas issue, he said, �We should distinguish between the Rohingyas and the illegal immigrants in northeast India. The two cases are entirely different.�
The Rohingyas, Rizvi said, were persecuted and deliberately thrown out of Myanmar as a part of ethnic cleansing, adding, �It is not acceptable.�
Close to one million Rohingyas are currently living in Bangladesh. � PTI
