In he words of Home Minister Amit Shah there have been steady growth in the share of Muslims in Indian border populations.
He pointed out that, according to the 2011 Census, the decadal growth rate of the Muslim population in Assam was 29.6 percent.
This would not have been possible without infiltration.
In several districts of West Bengal, this growth rate exceeded 40 percent. In a few border districts, the growth rate was reported to have reached 70 percent.
In 2008, I had interviewed Lt Gen S K Sinha (retd), former Governor Assam and Jammu and Kashmir, for The Statesman.
In the published interview Nov 22, 2008, he had said: "On July 15, 2004, Union Minister of State for Home Sri Prakash Jaiswal told Parliament that there were 1.2 crore illegal migrants in the country. The following day the PM Dr Manmohan Singh was in Guwahati and presumably under the influence of local Congressmen, he said that the figure given by the Minister was not authentic".
There is yet another example.
IPS officer E N Rammohan, then a DG BSF, had stated in an official report in 1997 that, “As Additional SP in 1968 in Nowgaon, I did not see a single Bangladeshi village on Jagi Road or in Kaziranga.
In 1982, when I was posted as DIGP, Northern Range, Tezpur, five new Bangladeshis Muslim villages had come up near Jagi Road and hundreds of families had built up their huts encroaching into the land of the Kaziranga Game Sanctuary.”
May 21, 2026 ::: At the border town of Phansidewa in north Bengal, border fencing has started after the West Bengal government handed over 27 km of land to Border Security Force (BSF) along the India-Bangladesh border.
A resident of Phansiweda, Narayan Saha, said:
"We congratulate this government on the success and prosperity of the village, because we, living in a border area, have been relieved of so many hardships. We had asked for border fencing, but it wasn't done for some reason.
Today, with Suvendu Adhikari taking over, the BSF has been given a free hand within 10 days. All of us villagers are filled with joy... The villagers are very happy. They feel like now they can breathe freely. We can sleep peacefully."
Shivam Modak, also said: "This is a matter of great joy. The 27 kilometers of land the government has given the BSF is giving us a sigh of relief. Previously, we felt very insecure because of the problem of animosity, because who could do what at any time.
This is a matter of national security... We had requested this many times, but were told that the previous state government was not providing land."
Sources said -- The police commissioner and the RPF (Railway Protection Force) have been directly instructed not to produce before a court an illegal Bangladeshi immigrant, not under the purview of the CAA, caught at Howrah station.
They should be fed well, and arrangements must be made to send them straight to a border outpost either on the Bongaon border or in Basirhat.”
***
In terms of magnitude and scale; the illegal influx of Bangladeshis is a vexed issue impacting Assam, West Bengal and other bordering states for several decades.
Almost a century earlier, in 1931, Assam’s the then
Census Superintendent S C Mullan wrote, “Probably the most important event in the province during the last 25 years… has been the invasion of vast hordes of land-hungry Bengali immigrants, mostly Muslims, from the districts of Eastern Bengal.”
What he further stated without mincing words sounds like a prophecy: “It is sad, but by no means improbable, that in another 30 years Sibsagar district will be the only part of Assam in which an Assamese will find himself at home.”
 |
| Indo-Bangladesh border : Tripura |
In my interview, Lt Gen Sinha (Retd) also had said -- "The illegal migration from Bangladesh is the principal factor for the agony of Assam. And Oct 30 (2008) like explosions will continue if present rulers both at the centre and in the state government (Congress in both) do not exhibit political will and also decide to take on Bangladesh suitably".
That political will was always lacking in West Bengal under 'infiltrators' friendly Mamata regime.
The border outposts are manned by the BSF.
On Wednesday, May 20, West Bengal chief minister Suvendu Adhikari had said his government would start detecting illegal Bangladeshis, detaining them and handing them over to the BSF to be deported.
On Thursday, Suvendu addressed reporters after chairing an administrative meeting in Howrah with senior officials of various departments and their counterparts in the railways in the presence of the district magistrate and the commissioner of Howrah city police.
Suvendu said the police should send a weekly report of illegal immigrants handed over to the BSF to the chief minister’s office (CMO) through the director-general of police.
The chief minister’s directive to the Howrah police and their counterparts in the railways is a significant one.
Under the directives, they might have been allowed to directly hand over people branded as illegal immigrants to the BSF, bypassing the courts.
If a Bangladeshi national is arrested for either entering India without valid documents or overstaying, the person is usually booked under the provisions of Section 14(A) of the Foreigners Act, 1946.
One interpretation is taking the 'court' route maybe time taking and may end up helping the infiltrators in more ways than one.
Henceforth, it may be the discretion of the law-enforcing authorities.
Section 14(A) deals with unauthorised entry into restricted, protected or prohibited areas of India.
This carries a stricter penalty of two to eight years of imprisonment and fines ranging from Rs 10,000 to Rs 50,000.
At an event to hand over land to erect 27km of fencing along the Bangladesh border to the BSF on Wednesday, Suvendu had said the Bengal government would start detecting illegal Bangladeshis, detaining them and handing them over to the border forces for deportation.
“The Indian government sent an order on May 14, 2025, asking the Bengalgovernment to identify Bangladeshi immigrants and hand them over to the BSF for deportation,” Suvendu hadsaid.
“We will be implementing the order... arresting all such illegal immigrants and handing them over to the BSF,” he said.
Over the past few years, several Bangladeshi nationals had been arrested in and around Howrah station for alleged illegal entry into India and possessing forged identity documents.
In May 2025, Shibpur police and residents had detained Faruk Sheikh after he arrived at Howrah station from Mumbai.
He had allegedly crossed into India illegally a year before.
In April 2025, Golabari police arrested Abdullah and Farida Begum following what they described as “suspicious behaviour” outside Howrah station.
The couple had allegedly entered India unlawfully and visited Odisha and Mumbai without valid travel documents.
In fact, Howrah and Sealdah railway stations have remained important transit points for illegal infiltrators from across the border.
Alerts about suspected infiltrators using the stations to reach other parts of the country from Bengal keep coming quite frequently.
 |
| Faceless but raises eyebrows : Sitai (North Bengal) |
ends
No comments:
Post a Comment