GUWAHATI: Firing a bombshell, Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma on Wednesday said a section of textile industries in India were illegally “importing” cheap labourers from Bangladesh.
Stating that the Centre is very serious about the issue, he said, “We have to strike at those industrial houses which are incentivising people to come to India in the form of cheap labour.”
Sarma said a massive increase in the infiltration of Bangladeshi nationals into Assam and India had been witnessed since the “disruptions” in that country. He said he had discussed the matter with his counterparts in the Northeast and also the government of West Bengal two days ago.
“The Assam police are detecting 20 to 30 infiltrators every single day and an equal number of people is also being witnessed in Tripura. When we tried to research why this is happening, we found that the textile industry in Bangladesh virtually collapsed after the unrest in that country,” the Assam CM said, referring to the fall of the Sheikh Hasina-led Awami League government.
He said the Bangladeshi textile labourers were now coming to India and many textile factory owners within India were incentivising them. They are giving a good amount of money for importing cheap labourers illegally, he added.
“We raised this issue in the last NEC (North Eastern Council) meeting. I have also discussed it with Home Minister Amit Shah in my last meeting. This is a very alarming issue for us because we never detected that many infiltrators in earlier times,” Sarma said.
According to him, once there is an unrest in Bangladesh and its economy collapses, it is obvious that the majority community (Muslims) will be affected more than the minorities in that country. He said the textile workers in Bangladesh were mostly from the majority community.
“We detected and pushed back around 1,000 infiltrators since the disruptions in Bangladesh. We don’t put them in jail as they walk out on bail. We created another way to push them back immediately,” Sarma said.