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India ignored Bangla assurance on post-1971 infiltrators

By R Dutta Choudhury

GUWAHATI, Jan 4 - Way back in 1972, Bangladesh had agreed to take back the Bangladeshi nationals who had taken shelter in India after March 25, 1971 but the issue was never followed up seriously by the Government of India during the bilateral talks between the two countries.

The Union Home Ministry had also submitted affidavits before the Supreme Court giving details of the matter on several occasions including during the case relating to the Illegal Migrants (Determination by Tribunals) Act, which was later scrapped by the Apex Court.

The Government affidavits claimed that during the talks between the Prime Ministers of both the countries, the Bangladesh Prime Minister had assured to take back all the Bangladeshi nationals who had taken shelter in India since March 25, 1971. Accordingly a circular was issued by the Government of India on September 9, 1972 setting out the guidelines for action to be taken in respect of persons who had come to India before March 25, 1971. According to the circular, those Bangladeshi nationals who came to India before March 25, 1971 should not be sent back and those who came after that date should be repatriated.

However, over the years, the Government of India has not taken up the issue strongly with the Government of the neighbouring country and even today, the process of deportation of Bangladeshi nationals from India remains a farce as less than ten percent of the persons declared as Bangladeshi nationals by the Tribunals set up under the provisions of the Foreigners� Act can be physically deported.

The process of deportation is also a very lengthy one as whenever a person is declared as a foreigner, the Assam Government informs the Centre and Delhi, in turn informs Dhaka through its embassy. The Government of Bangladesh verifies the identity of the person sought to be deported along with the original address of the person and the whole process takes a long time and in the last few years, only a handful of persons could be deported through the process.

Though Prime Minister Narendra Modi had made tall claims on dealing with the problem of infiltration of foreigners before being elected to power in 2014, during his visit to Bangladesh in 2015 did not raise the issue and the joint declaration following his meeting with the Bangladesh Prime Minister has no mention of the issue.

The joint declaration issued following the meeting between Modi and Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina included wide range of issues including implementation of the land boundary agreement, cooperation in energy sector, exchange of the enclaves, railway links, coastal shipping, prevention of smuggling and fake currency, human trafficking, etc., but there was no mention about the issue of illegal infiltration of Bangladeshi nationals to India and the problems faced by India in deporting the Bangladeshi nationals who illegally entered the country.

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