KENDRAPARA: Names of 137 suspected Bangladeshis have been deleted from the voters’ list of Mahakalpada block by the Kendrapara administration.
ADM Basant Kumar Rout said the district administration had received complaints regarding the illegal occupants and they were directed to produce their land records and birth certificates to prove their citizenship. However, they could not produce any of the documents as a result of which, their names had to be deleted, he added.
In 2005, the district administration served Quit India notices under the provisions of Foreigners Act, 1948 to 1,551 Bangladeshis in the district. All the 137 persons, who were served notices, managed to record their names in the voters’ list two years back by providing wrong information due to which, their names were deleted from the list.
The infiltrators, however, cried foul. Deepak Mandal of Pitapatha village, whose name has been deleted, said Quit India notice was served on him in 2005 and subsequently, the officials concerned recorded his name in the voters’ list, provided him an Aadhaar card after he provided them relevant documents to prove his citizenship.
“Our grandfather came to Hariabanka village in the district in 1948 from East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) after partition as a registered refugee. Despite this, the district administration had illegally served Quit India notices on me and my family members, branding us as illegal immigrants. We challenged the order of the administration by filing a writ petition in the Orissa High Court and the court in 2016 directed the Government not to take any coercive action against us. We submitted our birth certificates, school leaving certificates and other documents to prove our Indian citizenship for which the enumerators recorded our names in the voters’ list two years back, but recently the officials deleted our names from voters’ list”, said another villager, Asit Mirdha.
Highest number of infiltrators in K’para
In 2015, the Chief Minister had informed the State Assembly that 3,987 Bangladeshis were illegally staying in the State. The highest number of 1,649 Bangladeshi infiltrators were staying in Kendrapara followed by 1,112 in Jagatsinghpur. There are 655 infiltrators in Malkangiri, 313 in Bhadrak, 150 in Balasore, 106 in Nabarangpur and two in Bargarh.