The Union home ministry has instructed the governments of West Bengal, Maharashtra, Tripura, Assam, Uttar Pradesh and Delhi to immediately set up district-level task forces to identify illegal Bangladeshi immigrants and organise their “push back”.
In a note to the home departments of the six states on Wednesday, the Union home ministry directed that they form the special task forces within 15 days and take necessary follow-up action. The ministry also wants regular updates on the matter.
As per the note, the state governments should submit monthly reports to the Centre on the number of illegal Bangladeshi immigrants, after which Border Security Force (BSF) would physically ensure their “push back”.
The job of the task forces would be to identify illegal immigrants, search them, chase them, if necessary, and finally arrange for sending them back to their home country.
State governments sharing borders with Bangladesh should set up temporary prison camps in villages along the borders.
“Arrested immigrants should be housed in these camps and later pushed back to Bangladesh,” the note reads.
Immigrants arrested from states not sharing borders with Bangladesh will also be housed in these camps in West Bengal, Tripura and Assam.
West Bengal state home department sources told DNA that intelligence reports suggested around 1 crore Bangladeshis had illegally crossed over to India in the last two decades.
“In addition, there are a few lakh Bangladeshis who came to India with valid documents but never went back,” a senior state home department official, who declined to be named, said.
