Launch drive to detect, deport illegal Bangladeshis: UP top cop

LUCKNOW: Uttar Pradesh director general of police (DGP) O P Singh on Tuesday issued a circular, directing all district police chiefs to launch a comprehensive drive to detect and deport illegal Bangladeshi immigrants from the state.

The move comes amid apprehension that Bharatiya Janata Party is pushing for a nation-wide National Register of Citizens (NRC) exercise, like the one carried out in Assam. Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath had on September 16 praised the implementation of the NRC in Assam and hinted that a similar drive could be launched in his state, if required.

Confirming the development, the UP police chief said the move was aimed at strengthening “internal security”, but denied its link to any NRC exercise . He said it was a routine exercise and was done in the past as well.

The DGP said police in all the 75 districts have been told to verify the identity of suspected illegal immigrants who may be staying in shanties and camps on the outskirts of cities, around railway stations and bus stands as well as slums that have recently come up on deserted stretches.

Singh said the district police have also been told to record videos and click photographs of the localities inhabited by illegal immigrants.

A senior official posted at state police headquarters in Lucknow said on condition of anonymity that at least 259 Rohangiya Muslims were found to be living in Lucknow and Mathura, and more than a thousand Bangladeshis are suspected to be illegally staying in different districts of the state.

More than 700,000 Rohingya fled the 2017 ethnic cleaning in Myamnar’s Rakhine state, While most of them are taking shelter in Bangladesh, about 18,000 Rohingya refugees registered with United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) are living in India.

The DGP’s circular, a copy of which has been reviewed by HT, cautioned that illegal immigrants take shelter in slums and camps by posing as residents of other states of the country. He said the district police should do a verification of the suspected illegal immigrants and cross-check their claims if they identify themselves as Indian citizens.

The circular stated that the police should also try to verify how the suspected illegal immigrants managed to get different identity proofs, and specify the government facilities they were availing of.

The DGP said people helping them in getting “fake identity proofs” should also be identified and stern action should be taken against them. “These identity proofs could be ration cards, voter lists, driving licences, firearms licences, passports as well as Aadhaar cards,” reads the circular.

The police personnel were asked to collect fingerprints of the suspected illegal immigrants so that a centralised data base could be prepared.

The circular states that construction agencies should collect the identity proofs of labourers before hiring them.

Identification and deportation process

A second senior police official said the detection and deportation of illegal immigrants is not an easy task. He said Bangladesh does not accept them as their nationals and often they return to India after their purported deportation taking advantage of the porous border between India and Bangladesh.

He said the law enforcement agencies also face difficulties as most migrants claim themselves to be residents of West Bengal, and local agencies in Bengal do not cooperate with other states in the verification process.

The official said scanning of mobile calls made by suspected illegal immigrants to their relatives in Bangladesh and calls from Bangladesh may help in identifying them.