The Assam government’s admittance in the ongoing session of the State Legislative Assembly that it does not have a proper database about illegal migrants has come as a shocker. The admittance has come from none other than State Parliamentary Affairs Minister Chandra Mohan Patowary, who, while replying to a question on Monday also said that whatever data on illegal migrants was currently available with the government was in a disorderly manner. Though the minister carefully avoided blaming the previous governments for the alleged ‘disorderly manner’ in which data about illegal migrants was being kept so long, it is common sense that the present government must itself take a major share of the blame. Even a child in Assam would say that this government had come to power in 2016 on the promise of protecting jaati, maati and bheti of the indigenous communities from the onslaught of large hordes of illegal migrants from Bangladesh. It is thus surprising that the same government has discovered that the database was in a ‘disorderly manner’ even as it is close to completing three years in office.
One does not have to be a master in rocket science to make an estimate of the illegal migrants currently living in the state. Volumes of reports have been submitted by the Assam government in the Supreme Court over the years – nay decades now – regarding the presence of illegal migrants in the State. The state government has several departments that should have such data that are so critical for it. While the State Home Department is one most important department dealing with this issue, there is also the Department of Assam Accord Implementation, as also the Law Department which have been handling the Bangladeshi influx issue. As the minister also informed the State Assembly, three departments of the state government – namely the Border Branch of Assam Police, the Election Department and the Foreigners Tribunals – were currently engaged in the task of preparing the database.
But, despite having only data kept in a ‘disorderly manner’, the minister however also informed the State Assembly that the Foreigners Tribunals have declared 1,03,764 persons as foreigners till August 31, 2018, and of them judgements in 57,384 cases were ex parte. Of the 1,03,764 persons who were declared as foreigners, as many as 32,860 are from the period 1966-71, who were required to register themselves with Foreigner Regional Registration Offices, so that they could be regularized as Indian citizens after a period of ten years from the date of registration. But, surprisingly only 14,652 of them have registered with the Foreigner Regional Registration Offices, the minister said. Moreover, it is a matter of concern that the government could not furnish the dates on which these people were declared foreigners and the dates on which they applied for citizenship. The government also could not state what happened to those remainder people who did not register themselves. If the minister is to be believed, many of such people have not registered themselves with the FRRO office because of ignorance.
The government has also informed the State Assembly that 29,829 illegal migrants have been deported till January 31 this year. Moreover, the number of cases pending at the Foreigners Tribunals till August 31 stood at 201,981. What is most alarming is the minister’s admittance that the government did not have any information whether any of the 29,800 “foreigners” deported to Bangladesh had re-entered Assam, or for that matter India. This reminds of the earlier government telling the State Assembly on several occasions in the past that a large number of persons declared as foreigners by the Tribunals could not be traced because they had mingled with the local population.