By Our Reporter
SHILLONG, Aug 7: The North East Students’ Organisation (NESO), a conglomeration of eight students’ bodies from across the region, has urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah to ensure no one enters the northeastern states from Bangladesh illegally.
They also said no Bangladeshi national should be granted asylum or rehabilitated in the region.
“The NESO humbly seeks your immediate intervention to ensure that no illegal (person) enters the northeastern states from Bangladesh and also requests that not a single Bangladeshi should be granted asylum or rehabilitated in the entire region,” the NESO said in a letter to Modi and Shah.
“At this juncture, the government of India must ensure that the border between Northeast India and Bangladesh should be thoroughly and strictly manned to detect attempted illegal migration from across the border,” the NESO said.
Drawing the attention of the Prime Minister to the events unfolding in Bangladesh, the NESO stated such a situation can have serious ramifications in India, especially in the Northeast whose four states border Bangladesh. While the length of Tripura’s border with Bangladesh is 856 km, that of Meghalaya is 443 km, Mizoram is 318 km, and Assam is 262 km.
Pointing out that the ongoing crisis in Bangladesh may lead to an exodus of its nationals into India, the NESO said past events indicate that whenever there is a civil war or a riot in Bangladesh, the Northeast always had to bear the brunt of mass illegal immigration from the country.
“During partition in 1947, lakhs of Bengalis from East Pakistan illegally crossed the border and forcibly occupied lands in Assam and Tripura (then a Union Territory). Similarly, during the Bangladesh Liberation War of 1971, lakhs and lakhs of East Pakistanis migrated into Indian territory including the Northeast creating a demographic imbalance, especially in the states of Assam, Tripura, and Meghalaya (then a part of undivided Assam),” it stated.
The NESO further stated that the unabated flow of illegal immigrants from Bangladesh (East Pakistan) brings forth an air of tension and stiff competition in the Northeast. It pointed out that the arrival of millions of illegal foreigners from other countries led to a contest of space, forced cultural assimilation, economic competition, and distrust between the indigenous populace and the foreigners besides leading to a drastic alteration of the demographic structure in most regions of the seven northeastern states.
Pointing out how the illegal foreigners overwhelmed the minuscule indigenous populace overnight, the NESO cited the example of Tripura, which saw a dramatic increase in the Bangladeshi population under the onslaught of mass migration since 1947, reducing the native tribal population to a mere 30% in their homeland.
The NESO also underscored how Assam is still experiencing a mass influx of illegal migrants which led to a six-year-long Assam Movement, causing martyrdom to 860 people, eventually leading to the signing of the historic Assam Accord which promised to deport illegal Bangladeshis from Assam and how similarly, Meghalaya and Arunachal Pradesh have been demanding the deportation of all foreigners from their states after migrants overwhelmed the indigenous communities in many pockets of their respective states.
“Such unabated flow of immigrants into the region thus led to insecurity, agitations, riots, and clashes between these foreigners and the indigenous people,” the NESO added.