Deportation of foreigners a farce
— R Dutta Choudhury
The process of detection and deportation of foreigners living in Assam is
turning out to be a farce as majority of the persons declared as foreigners by
the tribunals could not be deported over the years, which also raised question
marks on the sincerity of the Government in dealing with the problem. If the
Government is really serious in dealing with the problem of infiltration of
foreigners, which not only posed a serious threat to the identity of the
indigenous people, but also posing a grave security threat, adequate steps
should be taken at least to deport those identified as foreigners by the
tribunals.
The figures given out by the State Government exposed the fact that something
is seriously wrong in the process of detection and deportation of foreigners
from the state and if the loopholes in the process are not plugged, those will
encourage more infiltration from across the border. The Government of Assam
recently admitted in the State Assembly that more than 42,000 foreigners were
detected since the singing of the Assam Accord in 1985 and only about 2,100 of
them could be deported. In the first five months of this year, only around 50
persons were declared as foreigners by the tribunals set up under the
provisions of the amended ForeignersÂ’ Act but none of them could be deported as
they went missing. One fails to understand what prevented the Government from
deporting the persons declared as foreigners by the tribunals. The Government
should also make public the whereabouts of the persons identified as
foreigners. The law enforcing agencies should have kept a close tab
on the persons declared as foreigners so that they cannot move to other parts
of the State to mingle with the local population to avoid detection.
It is a fact that the process of detection of foreigners is painstakingly slow
and this fact was admitted by Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi recently in a Press
conference. Gogoi admitted that the process of detection of foreigners by the
tribunals was turning out to be very slow and announced his decision to hold
talks with the judges of the tribunals to know their problems and to request
them to expedite the process. But the question is if the persons declared as
foreigners by the tribunals cannot be deported, what is the use of spending
time, energy and public funds in detecting foreigners. Of course, pushing back
foreigners is a difficult task as the Government of Bangladesh always refuses
to accept those detected as foreigners as its citizen, but the Government of
India must adopt a tough stand and take up the issue seriously with the
Government of Bangladesh.
To expedite the process of detection of foreigners, the Government should
strengthen the Border Police wing of the Assam Police. Over the years,
successive Governments at Dispur failed to give due attention on the need for
strengthening the force. Moreover, the personnel of the Border Police, posted
in different districts, are often engaged in law and order duties and they have
very little time in concentrating in their assigned task, which is very
unfortunate. The personnel of the force should be used exclusively for
detection of foreigners.
The failure of the Government to detect foreigners also led to an unfortunate
situation, which forced studentsÂ’ and youthsÂ’ organisations to take the laws
into their own hands. In recent times, members of different such organisations
including the All Assam StudentsÂ’ Union (AASU) and Asom Jatiyatabadi Yuba
Chatra Parishad (AJYCP) decided to take the laws into their own hands and tried
to apprehend persons whom they suspect as foreigners. This may lead to social
tension in Assam and the Government will have to take the blame for that. No
one should be allowed to take the laws into their own hands as the studentsÂ’
organisations have no means to detect a foreigner and it is the responsibility
of the Government to detect and deport anyone staying illegally in Assam.
Recently the Chief Minister announced that the Government would form vigilance
committees for detection of foreigners. The committees comprising cross
sections of people will report to police if they suspect anyone
to be a foreigner. This may help the police in detecting foreign nationals,
but at the same time, the whole process will turn out to be a meaningless
exercise if the persons detected as foreigners are not deported from Assam.
Different organisations particularly those representing the minority
communities often allege harassment of Indian citizens in the process of
detection of foreigners and the Government should also ensure that no genuine
Indian citizen is harassed. The updating of the National Register of Citizens
(NRC) of 1951 could have helped the concerned law enforcing agencies in
detection of foreigners and it will also reduce harassment of genuine Indian
citizens. But unfortunately, the process of updating the vital document
remained very slow and not even the Minister in charge of Assam Accord
Implementation is not in a position to say as to when the process will be
completed.
It was decided in a tripartite meeting to review the progress of implementation
of the Assam Accord in May, 2005 that the process of updating the NRC would be
completed in two years, but the assurance given in the meeting, which was
chaired by none other than Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh, remained on paper
only and in the last two years, the Assam Government even failed to formulate
the modalities for updating the NRC. The State Government recently decided to
form a Cabinet sub committee to formulate the modalities for updating the NRC
and one fails to understand what took the Government two years to form such a
committee. This also raised question marks on the sincerity of the Government
in updating the vital document as quickly as possible. Moreover, the Government
of India has not yet amended the Citizenship Act to authorise the State
Government to update the NRC and it promised to do so only after the modalities
are finalised. Under the circumstances, no one is in
a position to say as to when the entire process will be completed. The Prime
Minister should also face the blame for the delay in updating the NRC, as he
should have instructed his office to keep a close watch to ensure that the
assurances given in his presence are implemented within the specific time frame.
Detection and deportation of foreigners are, no doubt, a time consuming
process, but efforts should have been made at least to seal the border to
prevent unabated infiltration of foreigners. It is unfortunate that
construction of border roads and fencing along the Assam-Bangladesh border,
which started way back in the late 1980s, is yet to be completed and several
deadlines given in this regard expired. During the tripartite meeting chaired
by the Prime Minister, the Government of India promised to complete the fencing
by December last year, but the promise remained on paper only. If the
Government is really serious in checking infiltration, it should ensure that
the fencing is completed on war footing and its quality is improved. Adequate
facilities should be provided to the Border Security Force (BSF), entrusted
with the responsibility of guarding the international border and the strength
of the force should be augmented. The State Government is also responsible for
the
delay in completion of the fencing as earlier, the State PWD was entrusted
with the job and the Centre only provided the funds for the same. But due to
faulty designs, most parts of the fencing erected by the State PWD had to be
uprooted for the construction of a new composite fence, which not only delayed
the process of sealing the border but also resulted in colossal wastage of
public funds. Assam Tribune Editorial 14.08.07
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