GUWAHATI: Invoking the Immigrants (Expulsion from Assam) Act, 1950, the District Magistrate of Biswanath has issued an order directing a “declared foreigner” to leave India within 24 hours.
The July 2 order was issued based on a report of the Senior Superintendent of Police (Border) which said Kayam Ansari (Anchari), son of the late Ajit Anchari of Kherbari village in Assam’s Sonitpur district, had been “adjudged a foreigner of Bangladeshi nationality” by a foreigners’ tribunal in a 2008 case.
The individual was apprehended on May 28 last year and he had since remained lodged at the Matia transit camp in Goalpara district.
In the report, the SSP (Border) mentioned that no case, writ petition, or other proceeding touching Ansari was pending before any court of law, and that no legal impediment subsisted to his deportation.
Biswanath District Magistrate Karabi Saikia Karan directed the declared foreigner “to quit and depart the territory of the State of Assam, India, through the Sribhumi/Dhubri/South Salmara route, within 24 hours of receipt of this order.”
Sribhumi, Dhubri and South Salmara districts share a border with Bangladesh.
“It is further ordered that in the event of non-compliance, government shall proceed to effect his removal from the territory of the State of Assam, India, in accordance with the provisions of the Immigrants (Expulsion from Assam) Act, 1950, and other applicable law,” the order of the DM read.
The SSP (Border) was instructed to take all requisite steps for the execution of the order and facilitate the individual’s deportation through appropriate authorities in accordance with law.
The Immigrants (Expulsion from Assam) Act, 1950 was enacted by the Parliament post-Partition of India, primarily to address the influx of migrants from East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) to Assam.
In the first known use of the Act in November last year, the Sonitpur District Magistrate had ordered five declared foreigners to leave the country within 24 hours.
