It is not just “illegal immigrants” from Bangladesh who spell trouble for the Indian security establishment. Far worse is the case of “legal immigrants” from Bangladesh disappearing in India, say dependable sources.
The problem of people coming from Bangladesh on legal documents to India but not returning to their country is increasing by the day. Data from security agencies says around 1.29 crore Bangaldeshis who crossed over into India on valid documents have not gone back since 2000.
And the Indian government has completely failed to trace them in the country. According to the Border Security Force (BSF), of the 6,400 people who cross over into India on legal documents everyday from 8 check-posts on the Indo-Bangladesh border, about 4,480 never go back to their country.
Since 2000, the number of legal migrants staying on in India illegally every single year is a whopping 16.12 lakh. “Every year, over 23 lakh people come to India from Bangladesh. Seventy% of them never return to their country. And these are people who travel to India by road with legal documents,” said a senior BSF official.
Sources in the BSF say that the border between India and Bangladesh is so porous that they don’t know how many immigrants are terrorists. Senior officials further said that most of these migrants continue to stay in India either because of better work opportunities, or because some members of their family have been staying in India for many years.
“We share a 2,500-km border with Bangladesh and some of the areas are extremely dense and difficult to man. “We have caught several terrorists trying to cross over into India, but those were on specific inputs from intelligence agencies,” a senior BSF official said.
If that was not enough, one state that received the maximum number of illegal migrants from Bangladesh is Assam but authorities say that only 3,000 Bangladeshi nationals have been caught and sent back from Assam since 1985.
To further elaborate the extent of the problem, Assam already has about 400,000 cases that are pending in the state and the nationality of these people has to be ascertained before they can be sent back to their country.
There are similar cases in Rajasthan where the local police found that Bangladeshi nationals, who had come into India on legal documents, have married locals and continue to stay here.
