Home Minister Rajnath Singh to visit India-Bangladesh border soon

NEW DELHI: Home Minister Rajnath Singh will soon visit the Indo-Bangladesh border to personally see the situation along the forward areas as illegal immigration from the neighbouring country continues to be a major concern.

"I will visit the Indo-Bangladesh border soon, probably within this month. I want to see the situation along the border as we are committed to check illegal immigration," he said at a seminar organised by the All Assam Students Union.

Singh said the NDA government wants to completely seal the Indo-Bangladesh border as illegal immigration was a matter of serious concern.

"We want to take all possible steps to check illegal immigration. All loopholes have to be plugged," he said.

The seminar - '30 years of Assam Accord: issues, challenges and implementation' - was organised on the eve of the three decades of the signing of the pact which was aimed at detection and deportation of illegal immigrants from Assam, by AASU and the central government on August 15, 1985.

Justifying AASU's demand for detection and deportation of illegal immigrants from Assam, the Home Minister, however, made it clear that genuine Indians will not be harassed.

"Whoever is Indian, will remain in India," he said.

Sports Minister Sarbananda Sonowal, a former President of AASU, urged the Home Minister to take proper steps for the constitutional safeguards of the indigenous people of Assam.

"Till Assamese people don't get full security, people of Assam will have to continue their fight. Constitutional safeguard should be given to indigenous people," he said.

The seminar was also attended by AASU chief advisor Samujjal Kumar Bhattacharya, vice-chancellor of Dibrugarh University Alak K. Buragohain besides others.