Foreigners’ detection, deportation a farce

[karira]

As reported by R Dutta Choudhury in assamtribune.com on 5 August 2008:
The Assam Tribune Online

Foreigners’ detection, deportation a farce

GUWAHATI, Aug 4 – The process of detection and deportation of foreigners from Assam has turned into a major farce with only a small number of persons declared as foreigners by the tribunals could be deported and with no provision to detain the suspected foreigners, they manage to escape easily to avoid deportation. The records made available by the Border Police in response to questions put under the provisions of the Right to Information Act (RTI) by The Assam Tribune clearly expose the fact that the process of deportation of foreigners has become a total farce as majority of the persons declared as foreigners can easily make good their escape by taking advantage of the loopholes in the system.

As per records available, during the period from 1985 to July, 2005, as many as 12,846 persons were declared as foreigners by the tribunals under the provisions of the Illegal Migrants (Determination by Tribunals) Act and only 1547 of them could be deported. No one has any record of the whereabouts of the rest and police believes that they might be staying either in Assam or in the rest of the country. The Border Police response on their whereabouts is, “ all the district superintendents of police have been instructed to trace out the untraced declared foreigners and deport them from Assam”. However, it is evident that detection of the untraced persons for their deportation will be next to impossible.

The records reveal that during the period from 1986 to March this year, more than 30,000 persons were declared foreigners under the provisions of the Foreigners Act. if them, 12440 registered themselves with the FRROs and 674 were deported. But no one has any record of the remaining 17,000 persons and they must be staying in the State.

Though the IMDT Act was always considered to be a major hurdle in the way of detection and deportation of foreigners, the situation has not improved since the Supreme Court scrapped the Act. As per records available, the foreigners living in the State are now detected under the provisions of the Foreigners’ Act and after the scrapping of the IMDT, as many as 14,789 cases were registered against suspected foreigners and were referred to the Tribunals established under the Foreigners’ Act. Up to March this year, the Tribunals declared 1205 persons as foreigners but only one of them could be deported and no one knows what happened to the rest.

However, during the period from 1985 to March this year, 26,783 fresh and re-infiltrators were detected and deported to Bangladesh.

Meanwhile, official sources admitted before The Assam Tribune that the Foreigners’ Act would have to be amended to make the process of detection and deportation of foreigners more effective. Sources said that there is no provision for arresting anyone under the provisions of the Foreigners’ Act and some of the suspected foreigners escape immediately after receiving notices from the Tribunals. Of course, some of them contest their cases in the Tribunals and majority of those go into hiding after they are declared as foreigners. Sources said that to make the system effective, the Act would have to be amended to allow keeping suspects in detention camps.

Another major problem is in deportation of foreigners. Sources said that Government of India does not have any push back of extradition treaty with Bangladesh and the Bangladesh Rifles always refuses to accept Bangladeshi nationals to be pushed back to that country. This forces the Indian security forces to push back Bangladeshi nationals forcefully and very often they manage to re-infiltrate by taking advantage of the porous international border. The situation will definitely improve considerably if the Government of India manages to sign a pushback or extradition treaty with the Government of Bangladesh, sources pointed out.

The rate of pushback was much better when Bangladesh was not created. In only two years from 1962 to 1964, the Border police, created under the Prevention of Infiltration of Pakistanis scheme, managed to deport 1,13,617 foreigners to then East Pakistan and BSF was deployed along the international border only after the war with Pakistan in 1965. However, the rate of detection and deportation of foreigners slowed down after the creation of Bangladesh.