Bangladeshi migrants issue haunts

NEW DELHI: As the investigators of the Assam serial blasts pointed the needle of suspicion towards HuJI, the issue of continuous illegal immigration from Bangladesh has again come to fore with the Centre saying that citizens of the neighbouring country enter India "clandestinely" through the porous border, posing serious security threat.

"The government is aware of the presence of illegal Bangladeshi migrants in various parts of the country. Since, they enter clandestinely and also mingle with the local population quite easily due to ethnic, linguistic and cultural similarities, exact and realistic estimates about their number are not available," a top Home Ministry official said.

Interestingly, the BSF, which guards the 4,095-km-long porous Indo-Bangla border, has recently disclosed that 12 lakh Bangladeshis, who had entered India between 1972 and 2005 with valid documents, have not returned home.

While 25,712 out of 5,00,234 Bangladeshi nationals did not return after expiry of their visa in 2007, more than 24,000 remained missing in 2006 when 4.84 lakh had entered India with valid travel documents.

Though the government has adopted a multi-pronged approach to contain infiltration from Bangladesh which includes round the clock surveillance, patrolling and fencing, unabated influx from across the border is posing serious security threat as probe into the recent serial blasts in different parts of the country has links to India's eastern neighbour.