New Delhi: In over a quarter century, the government tribunals have declared only 22,890 persons as foreigners who came to Assam on or after 25th March 1971. Mr. Mullappally Ramachandran, Minister of State in the Ministry of Home Affairs gave this information in a written reply to a question by BJP Member Chandan Mitra in Rajya Sabha today. BJP has long claimed that there are around three crore foreigners in the country.
“Between the years 1986 to 2012 (upto 30th September 2012), Tribunals set up under the provisions of Illegal Migrants (Determination by Tribunals), Act 1983 and Foreigners Act, 1946, declared 22,890 persons as foreigners who came to Assam on or after 25.3.1971. Of this, 2,442 declared foreigners were deported during the said period. As on 10th December 2012, some 110 number of declared foreigners are kept in detention centres for their repatriation to Bangladesh,” said the minister adding that 20,338 declared foreigners are to be deported to their place of origin.
However, he admitted that “Many of them have filed cases in the respective court in Assam challenging the orders of Tribunals declaring them as foreigners.”
He said that to speed up detection and deportation of foreign nationals and also disposal of cases pending in the Tribunals, para 3 of Foreigners (Tribunal) Order, 1964 was amended in April 2012 which interalia states that every case shall be disposed off within 60 days of the reference from the competent authority.