Staff Reporter
GUWAHATI: Worried over the infiltration into Assam and India from Bangladesh after the turmoil in the neighbouring country, Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said he had already taken up the issue with the chief ministers of the northeastern states and West Bengal, besides the Union Ministry of Home Affairs.
He said, “In the recent past, we have pushed back around 1,000 infiltrators to Bangladesh. If we arrest them, we need to keep them in detention camps, and their deportation faces legal hurdles.”
On the reason behind this increasing influx in the past few months, the Chief Minister said, “Several textile industries in Bangladesh have been facing closure threat since the recent turmoil. The jobless Bangladeshi textile workers come to India through Assam, Meghalaya, Tripura, and West Bengal seeking jobs. A section of the textile industries in India is trying to woo these Bangladeshis as cheap but skilled workers. We need to talk to the textile industries of India so as to debar them from tempting Bangladeshi workers.”
He further said, “Most of the infiltrators are Muslims. We have not seen any Hindu infiltrators from Bangladesh in the recent waves. They find it difficult to leave the country where their forefathers were living. We also don’t want the Bangladeshi Hindus to come to India. The Government of India is taking up the issue of the protection of minority Hindus in Bangladesh with its counterpart in the neighbouring country.”
On the threat from fundamentalists, the Chief Minister said, “We cannot deny the increasing threat to the northeastern states from fundamentalists after the unrest in the neighbouring country. To prevent that, we have already intensified vigilance along the Bangladesh border through a coordinated network of the BSF, Assam Police, and Intelligence Bureau.”
On the implementation of Clause 6 of the Assam Accord, the Chief Minister said, “The Assam government will implement the subjects that come under it by April this year. There are some debatable subjects that need our discussion with the AASU. One of the recommendations of the Justice (retd) Biplab Kumar Sharma committee is a cadastral survey of the sar areas in the state. However, there are problems, as such sars have many people of suspected nationalities residing there for years. The cadastral survey will compel us to provide land pattas to such suspected people. That will spell disaster for the future of the state. We need to hold a discussion on this issue with the stakeholders.”
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