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North East : Steps to check Bangla migrants on cards

	May 09, 2005

Both New Delhi and Guwahati will soon initiate effective steps to check the flow of illegal migrants from Bangladesh. A decision to this effect was taken at a high level tripartite meeting held in the Prime Minister’s Office on April 5.

Among others, the meeting was attended by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Union Home Minister Shivraj Patil, National Security Adviser M.K. Narayanan, Chairman of the Prime Minister’s Economic Advisory Council C. Rangarajan, senior officials of the Union government and the PMO. Assam was represented by Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi, Minister of State for planning Himanta Biswa Sarma, state government officials and representatives of the militant outfit All Assam Students Union (ASSU).

The AASU delegation, led by its president Sankar Prasad Roy, included general secretary Tapan Gogoi, adviser Samujjal Bhattacharya, former president Prabin Boro and professor Basanta Deka.

The meeting. which lasted for two-and-a-half hours, decided to update the National Register of Citizens (NRC) within two years, taking 1971 as the cut-off year. The meeting also decided to seal the state’s border with Bangladesh within a year. For revision of the NRC, a separate directorate will be set up in Assam and the entire expense will be borne by the Centre. The register was last revised in 1951. The exercise will begin in September.

Barring the contentious Illegal Migrants (Determination by Tribunal) Act that eluded a consensus, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh gave an assurance on fulfilling the Assam Accord clauses that have been remaining unimplemented for the 20 years since it was signed. A definite time-frame to this effect will be finalised within a month.

AASU adviser Samujjal Bhattacharyya told reporters outside the PMO that their organisation would continue to pressure the Centre for the repeal of the IMDT Act. He said the students’ union had also demanded measures like shoot-at-sight orders along the border, electric fencing, floodlights and river patrolling.

The Centre agreed to intensify river patrolling and deploy additional battalions to man the border. The Prime Minister and Union Home Minister Shivraj Patil agreed to visit the border areas to personally supervise fencing work.

Delhi also gave its nod to examine the proposal for the creation of single-judge tribunals instead of the present two-judge ones under the IMDT Act.

The tripartite meeting was the second one at the Prime Ministerial level after the accord was signed in 1985. The first tripartite meeting was held when V.P. Singh was Prime Minister. Another round of talks will be held before the end of the current financial year.

Among the several provisions that are yet to be implemented is the one on providing political safeguards to the indigenous population. The issue has been hanging fire as the state government could not frame a definition of ‘Assamese’. The Centre said it was committed to provide safeguards to the indigenous people and a meeting in this regard will be held within a month.

Emerging from the meeting, Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi said the state government was in the process of finalising the definition of ‘Assamese’ and was in touch with the Assam Sahitya Sabha in this regard.

On the deportation of ‘foreigners’, the Chief Minister said all foreigners who entered Assam after March 24, 1971, the day before Mujibur Rehamn made his call for an Independent Bangladesh - will be detected and deported. “The State Government, the Centre and the All Assam Students Union are in agreement on this. There are no two opinions. The only difference is in the method we will use to find the foreigners,’ the Chief Minister said.



Fencing of Mizoram border

The Centre has begun work on sealing the porous Indo-Bangladesh border in Mizoram, undeterred by the problems faced in fencing certain areas in other states.

A seven-km stretch has already been fenced at Hnahva in Mamit district by the National Buildings Construction Company Limited (NBCCL).

The Union Home Ministry had asked the public sector unit to conduct a survey of the border last year. It aims at fencing 147 km between Amchurimukh and Marpara in the district this year and has earmarked Rs 250 crore for the purpose.

The Home Ministry plans to fence the 318-km stretch of the Mizoram-Bangladesh frontier by 2007-08 and will divide the work among a few public sector undertakings.

‘From the portion that has been fenced in Mizoram, it appears that this sector will be slightly different from our experience in other states. It may take more time and incur more expenditure due to the hilly terrain,’ Arup Roy Choudhury, chairman-cum-managing director of NBCCL, said.

The model of fencing is ‘double concertina coil’ as followed in other states. The coils are placed both vertically and horizontally between the barbed wires, which stretch to a height of 8.4 feet.

The Northeast shares a 1,880-km border with Bangladesh. Mizoram is the fourth state in the region where the border is being fenced. Work has been going on in Assam, Tripura and Meghalaya for the past few years though at a slow pace.