UP Police set to intensify drive to identify illegal immigrants
A senior home department official confirmed that detailed directives had been given to all district police chiefs, asking them to launch a comprehensive drive for identification of illegal immigrants. He said the police personnel had been asked to collect fingerprints of suspected illegal immigrants so that their district-wise centralised database could be prepared.
After repatriation of Pakistan nationals on short-term visas, the Uttar Pradesh Police will soon intensify the drive to identify Rohingya refugees and illegal Bangladeshi migrants staying across 75 districts in the state. The drive to identify illegal immigrants, who are possible threats for national security, has been initiated following the state government order in this regard on Tuesday, according to home department officials.
A senior home department official confirmed that detailed directives had been given to all district police chiefs, asking them to launch a comprehensive drive for identification of illegal immigrants. He said the police personnel had been asked to collect fingerprints of suspected illegal immigrants so that their district-wise centralised database could be prepared.
He said the construction agencies in the National Capital Region (NCR) and the state capital, where such illegal immigrants are often suspected to be working as labourers, should be asked to collect their identity proofs before hiring them for work. He said the district police officials were expected to cross-check nationalities of people staying in camps and slums on the city outskirts, on roadsides around railway stations and bus stands as well as in slums that have recently come up on deserted stretches in the cities. The official said that the district police officials had been asked to sensibly record videos and click photographs of the localities suspected to be hideouts of illegal immigrants.
Sharing further details, another official said that at least 259 Rohingyas living in Lucknow and Mathura had been identified, while several lakh Bangladesh nationals were suspected to be living illegally on fake identities as residents of north-eastern states, especially West Bengal and Assam, in different districts of Uttar Pradesh.
The official said the district police should ensure verification of the suspected illegal immigrants and cross-check their claims if they presented their identity proofs as residents of other states. He added that the district police officials had been asked to send a report to the state government for deportation after identification of illegal immigrants.
He further stated that the police should try to verify how the suspected illegal immigrants managed to get different identity proofs, and also list the state facilities they were availing. He said people helping them in getting fake identity proofs should be identified and stern action be taken against them. “These identity proofs could be ration cards, voter lists, driving licences, passports as well as Aadhaar cards,” he emphasised.
A senior police official said that there were several grey areas in identification of illegal Bangladeshi immigrants, and that it was a difficult task for enforcement agencies. He said Bangladesh did not accept them as their nationals, and they often returned to India even after being left across the porous Indian-Bangladesh border. He said the enforcement agencies faced difficulties as most of the illegal immigrants claimed to be residents of West Bengal, and the local agencies in West Bengal did not facilitate verification of the enquiries sent to cross-check their identities.
The official said the identification of illegal immigrants could be done by scanning their phone calls to family members and relatives in Bangladesh, and call generation from Bangladesh might help in identifying them.
The central intelligence report of 2006 had estimated the population of immigrants across the country at around 1.5 crore, but the problem lies in ascertaining their nationality, according to a senior police official involved in a similar exercise earlier.
A senior official in intelligence wing said it was very difficult to ascertain the nationality of illegal immigrants living in the country for the last three decades, as they had managed to get different identification proofs here.
He said most of the immigrants claimed to be residents of Assam, West Bengal and other states along the porous India-Bangladesh border. He pointed out that a large number of immigrants worked as labourers, rag-pickers, and rickshaw-pullers. “Besides, there is a small group from among them that has managed to improve their living standards as they took up auto repair work and got into sale-purchase of used two-wheelers and four-wheelers,” he added.
