GUWAHATI: Assam activist-turned-MLA Akhil Gogoi on Tuesday hit out at Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma, calling the state government's pushback strategy to remove alleged illegal Bangladeshi immigrants "fake".
Gogoi urged India to hold talks with Bangladesh and sign a bilateral agreement to address the deportation of illegal immigrants.
"Himanta Biswa Sarma is one who makes a non-issue into an issue. Deporting the illegal immigrants is a longstanding demand in Assam and in order to make people happy, the chief minister came up with the fake strategy of pushback but it has no legal validity," Gogoi told reporters.
The Raijor Dal president also said that there was no legal mechanism in India to deport illegal Bangladeshi immigrants. "There has to be a repatriation or extradition treaty between the two countries," he said.
He urged India to exert pressure on Bangladesh to sign an agreement and take back its nationals.
Notably, CM Sarma recently told the state Assembly that 31,789 illegal immigrants had been deported from Assam since 1985, based on the Assam Accord cut-off date of March 25, 1971. Of these, 2,366 were deported between 2011 and June 30 this year.
According to official data, 193 people declared "foreigners" by various Foreigners Tribunals were "pushed" into Bangladesh over the past two years. The Immigrants (Expulsion from Assam) Act, 1950, was invoked to push back 67 of them.
The Act was enacted by Parliament after the Partition to address the influx of migrants from East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) into Assam. In its first known use in November last year, the Sonitpur District Magistrate ordered five declared foreigners to leave the country within 24 hours.
There have been instances where the Border Guard Bangladesh resisted attempts by Indian authorities to push back people, claiming they were not Bangladeshi nationals.
The Supreme Court on Monday set aside Gauhati High Court judgments upholding orders of Foreigners Tribunals declaring 27 appellants as foreigners. The apex court remanded the cases to the respective tribunals.