GUWAHATI: In an exercise partly similar to that of the National Register of Citizens or NRC, the Centre has directed Manipur and Mizoram governments to record the biometric details of “illegal migrants” from Myanmar and Bangladesh.
“…a campaign for capturing of biometric data of illegal migrants in the states of Manipur and Mizoram is to be completed by the end of September 2023. The state governments of Manipur and Mizoram are requested to quickly prepare a plan and initiate the biometric capture of the illegal migrants,” a Ministry of Home Affairs letter, dated June 22 and written to the chief secretaries of the two states, reads.
The letter further states that the National Crime Records Bureau has made arrangements in all district headquarters for capturing the biometrics of illegal migrants. This facility is also proposed to be extended up to the police station level, the letter adds.
Manipur BJP MLA Rajkumar Imo Singh shared the letter on Twitter.
“Government of India has undertaken the task to identify illegal migrants across Manipur and Mizoram by capturing biometric data…State (Manipur) government had already started this earlier this year due to which nearly 2,500 illegal migrants were identified,” Singh wrote.
He considered the exercise as a step towards the NRC.
Over 40,000 people from Myanmar and Bangladesh entered Manipur and Mizoram in the past two years following violence in the two countries.
Eight injured Myanmar nationals are admitted at a hospital in Manipur’s Churachandpur. It could not be ascertained where and how they were injured.
There are no official figures on the number of refugees in Manipur but reports suggested that an estimated 5,000 people from Myanmar are taking refuge in the state.
The burden of refugees is more on Mizoram. An estimated 35,000 Chin people from Myanmar’s Chin State fled to Mizoram over a period of time in the wake of the coup by the military of the country in February 2021.
While the state was managing to accommodate these refugees, more than 1,000 Kuki-Chin people fled their homes in the Chittagong Hill Tracts of Bangladesh last year in the face of a conflict between the Bangladesh Army and an ethnic armed group.
Meanwhile, no major incident of violence was reported from strife-torn Manipur on Tuesday.