Deportation of foreigners a farce � R Dutta Choudhury

Tue Aug 14 06:11:58 PDT 2007

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 Foreigners 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 students and youths organisations to take the laws into their own hands. In recent times, members of different such organisations including the All Assam Students 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 students 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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