While Assam govt is taking stringent steps to evict and deport illegal infiltrators, Meghalaya, which shares a 443-km-long porous international border with Bangladesh, remains equally vulnerable, says AHAM
From Our Correspondent
TURA, June 16: In a letter to Chief Minister Conrad Sangma, the A’chik Holistic Awakening Movement (AHAM) has raised allegedly unchecked infiltration from Bangladesh into Meghalaya, while appealing to the Meghalaya government for preventive measures to curb illegal entry from across the border.
In the memorandum, AHAM CEB president George Prince Ch. Momin said the issue is rampant particularly in vulnerable border areas of Garo Hills and Khasi Hills. Momin said this poses serious threat to the security, demography, and socio-economic stability of the state.
Telling the government to take cue from the recent drive undertaken by Assam government in Goalpara district, where over 2,000 Bangladeshi-origin families have reportedly been served eviction notices and ordered to vacate their illegal encroachments within 48 hours, AHAM said the action taken by Assam has brought to light the urgency and seriousness of illegal infiltration in the region.
“While Assam government is taking stringent steps to evict and deport illegal infiltrators, Meghalaya, which shares a 443-km-long porous international border with Bangladesh, remains equally vulnerable”, Momin said in the memorandum.
He also pointed out that with many sections of the border lacking proper fencing, surveillance, and strict monitoring, there is an imminent risk that evicted infiltrators may attempt to re-enter India through Meghalaya’s Garo Hills and adjoining areas.
The group, in its memorandum, stated that Meghalaya’s western and southern borders, specifically West Garo Hills, South Garo Hills, South West Khasi Hills, East Khasi Hills and South West Garo Hills districts, are increasingly being used as potential routes for illegal entry due to porous borders with limited fencing coverage; forested and riverine terrain favourable for undetected movement; poor border management infrastructure; inadequate deployment of security personnel in remote sectors and proximity to known infiltration corridors.
In view of the above factors, AHAM has expressed apprehensions about potential consequences that the state is likely to face, if immediate and comprehensive action is not taken, such as demographic imbalance in indigenous tribal areas, encroachment on community and forest lands, communal and ethnic tensions, increase in cross-border crimes, strain on limited state resources, welfare schemes, and public services and threat to the constitutional rights, safety, and cultural identity of state’s indigenous tribes.
Stating that the issue of illegal infiltration is not just a border management problem, but a threat to Meghalaya’s cultural, social, economic, and political stability, the group urged the state government to accelerate fencing of all unfenced portions of Indo-Bangladesh border and called for installation of modern surveillance system.