AASU criticises Modi govt over illegal migrants

Guwahati, Feb 7: Prime Minister Narendra Modi should learn from his "friend" American President Donald Trump how to deport illegal migrants from a country to protect the interests of its citizens. This was demanded by the All Assam Students' Union (AASU).

Talking to The Assam Tribune, AASU president Utpal Sarma pointed out that during the election campaigns, Trump had promised to deport illegal migrants from the country and he started the process within one month of taking over office. On the other hand, just before the 2014 general elections, Narendra Modi had announced that if the BJP is elected to power, all illegal Bangladeshi nationals would have to leave India "bag and baggage." But till date, the Modi Government has not taken any effective steps to detect and deport illegal mi-grants.

Sarma pointed out that now the Supreme Court had to strongly criticize the Government for not deporting the people declared as foreigners by Foreigners' Tribunals and keeping them in India by spending taxpayers' money. This is very unfortunate and the Government should take immediate effective steps to detect and deport illegal migrants.

The situation in Assam is far worse than in the USA. Assam witnessed a six-year-long movement for detection and deportation of foreigners and the identity of the indigenous people is at threat due to demographic change that is taking place due to illegal migration. Instead of deporting foreigners, the Government of India is welcoming foreigners into the country by bringing in the Citizenship (Amendment) Act of 2019, the AASU president alleged.

The Supreme Court had earlier directed the Government of India to sign a treaty with Bangladesh to push back the declared foreigners, but that was not done, while the Gauhati High Court, in one of its rulings, said that foreigners have become kingmakers in Assam as they managed to enrol their names in the electoral rolls. Despite such rulings and observations of the Supreme Court and High Court, the Government kept mum on the issue of deportation of foreigners, Sarma pointed out.

The AASU president also alleged that the Central and State Governments are not keen on preparing a correct National Register of Citizens (NRC), which could have made the task of detecting foreigners easier. "It is a fact that AASU is not happy with the NRC and filed a petition in the Supreme Court demanding reverification. The Central and State Governments claim that they are unhappy with the NRC, but no petition was filed by both the Governments in the Apex Court. Moreover, the applications of 19 lakh persons for inclusion of their names in the NRC were rejected. But no action has been taken against those persons," Sarma added.

By R Dutta Choudhury