'Come elections, parties mum on influx'

Mere NRC update not enough, we also need to clear encroached lands and detect and deport foreigners, says Upamanyu Hazarika

By Our Staff Reporter

Guwahati, March 7: Supreme Court lawyer and convenor of the Prabrajan Birudhi Mancha Upamanyu Hazarika today said merely updating the tiol Register of Citizens is not enough to address the problem of illegal migration.

"We also need to clear the encroached lands and detect and deport foreigners. The Assam Agitation was not for NRC. It was for making the State encroachment-free and for detection and deportation of foreigners," he told reporters here.

Claiming that indigenous people are being victimized in certain areas in Darrang, Barpeta and Dhubri where immigrants are in majority, Hazarika stressed upon the need for constitutiol safeguards to indigenous people.

Hazarika, whose organization has undertaken a State-wide sigture campaign against illegal migration, said the State needs laws giving land rights and reservation in government jobs, among others, to indigenous people. He said he is saddened that political parties are yet to make their stand clear on their "way forward" in tackling the problem of influx.

"During elections, everyone goes mum on the issue. No one is saying what steps they would take up if they are voted to power," he rued.

Hazarika said that the first sitting of the next Assam Assembly should consider taking up laws that will protect the rights of indigenous people. "Manipur has done it recently. We must follow suit. The next Assembly elections will decide if the indigenous people will be reduced to minority in the State by 2040," he added.

Hazarika also informed that the issue of citizenship to children of illegal migrants born after 1971 is pending before the Supreme Court.