Eight years on Modi's May 16 deadline to deport illegal Bangladeshis awaits execution

Guwahati: Although the BJP government led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi is going to complete its second consecutive term in power next year, one of the prominent assurances of the Government as well as of Prime Minister Narendra Modi has still remained unfulfilled. During campaigning ahead of the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, he had set a deadline of May 16 to detect and deport illegal Bangladeshis from Assam and West Bengal, the two states that share an international border with Bangladesh, and recorded severe illegal infiltration from the neighboring country over the ages.

"You can write it down. After May 16, these Bangladeshis better be prepared with their bags packed," is a remark often repeated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi ahead of the Lok Sabha elections in 2014. After the victory in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, the saffron party also came to power in Assam in 2016 riding on slogans to detect and deport the illegal Bangladeshis.

However, despite being in power at the Centre since 2014 and in Assam since 2016, the party seemingly had done nothing to fulfill the promise. Statistics available with the Government reveal that while the 100 foreigners tribunal in Assam had detected and declared 1,43,466 persons as illegal foreigners in Assam till December 31, 2021, only 329 of them have been deported till February 2022.

Union Minister of State, Home Nityanand Rai has said that there are 100 foreigner tribunals in Assam and that the total number of cases in these tribunals is 1,23,829 till December 31 last year. The Minister also said that although the State Government and Union Territories are delegated powers to make arrangements for detention centers to house these detected foreigners yet the Government has no data about the detention centers and how many detected foreigners are detained there.

"There seems to be a lack of intent on the part of the government to detect and deport the illegal Bangladeshis in Assam. The foreigners issue in the country is decided by the Citizenship Act of 1946. Although there are provisions to detect and deport illegal foreigners, sufficient steps were not taken in Assam to detect and deport the foreigners," said senior advocate of Gauhati High Court, Nekibur Zaman.

"The country has a National Register of Citizens done in 1952. For Assam, they have the agreement called Assam Accord which mandates that all those who entered Assam till midnight on March 24, 1971, will be considered citizens. However, the influx continued and we have a huge burden of illegal foreigners. Now going by the government's statistics, if over 1,434,66 persons have been detected as foreigners why the government could deport only 329?" Zaman asked. "The government also do not have any data about the whereabouts of these 1,43,466 declared foreigners. Where are they? he said adding that the government must take proactive steps to detect and deport the illegal foreigners in Assam.

It may be mentioned here that Assam had recently updated the National Register of Citizens (NRC) on August 31, 2019, which included the names of 31 million as genuine Indian citizens while excluding the names of 1.9 million people. While different organizations pointed out errors in the updated NRC, the ruling BJP government in Assam also expressed unhappiness over the document and said that while it excluded names of many genuine Indian citizens it also included names of some suspected citizens.