Supreme Court to Centre: Check illegal migration via Bangladesh border
The order comes at a time when the Border Security Force (BSF) has raised an alarm over increasing number of Islamic militants infiltrating through the porous border.
In a landmark directive aimed at boosting security in five Indian states bordering Bangladesh, the Supreme Court on Wednesday asked the Centre to ensure fencing of the entire stretch of 4,096-km international boundary and take immediate steps to deport illegal migrants from the country.
As of now, only 65 per cent of the border is fenced.
The order comes at a time when the Border Security Force (BSF) has raised an alarm over increasing number of Islamic militants infiltrating through the porous border. The BSF raised the issue soon after the October 2 Burdwan blasts, in which two Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) members were killed.
The paramilitary force has come under fire from various quarters for laxity in controlling infiltration of illegal immigrants after the number of large-scale communal and ethnic clashes rose in Assam, West Bengal and north-eastern states in the last two years. A BSF report has said at least 3,000 to 4,000 infiltrators are arrested by it every year from the porous border.
"The Centre shall take all steps to complete fencing of the Indo-Bangla border. Vigil along the riverine boundary will be effectively maintained by continuous patrolling and installing flood lights. Such part of the international border, which has been perceived to be inhospitable on account of the difficult terrain, will be patrolled and monitored at vulnerable points, which could provide means of illegal entry," said a bench headed by Justice R.F. Nariman.
"The completed part of the border fencing will be maintained and repaired so as to constitute an effective barrier to cross-border trafficking," it said.
The court's directive came on PILs filed by tribal groups in Assam, seeking protection of their linguistic, social and cultural rights, which according to them, got violated due to increasing number of Bangladeshis in the state.
Noting that the Centre was not taking effective steps to send back illegal immigrants, the court said that "keeping in view the requirements of international protocol, we direct the Union of India to enter into necessary discussions with the Bangladesh government to streamline the procedure of deportation". The court quoted a 1998 report by then Assam governor L-G (retd.) S.K. Sinha to the President on the 'grave threat posed by the large-scale influx of people from Bangladesh to Assam', which said "the dangerous consequences both for the people of Assam and more for the nation as a whole need to be empathetically stressed". "No misconceived and mistaken notions of secularism should be allowed to come in the way of doing so," it said.