Union Home Ministry rejects visa free entry for Bangladesh national

GUWAHATI: The Union home ministry has rejected the proposed visa-free entry regime for Bangladesh nationals who are below 18 or over 65 and visa-on-arrival facility for the rest of Bangladeshi visitors.

The MHA response came to a foreign ministry suggestion ahead of the visit of external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj to Bangladesh later this week. It is unclear if the issue will figure in the bilateral discussions during the foreign minister’s visit.

Assam chief minister Tarun Gogoi was the first to raise the issue. Gogoi had said a few days ago that the BJP-led NDA government was proposing to grant a visa-free entry to Bangladesh nationals of certain age groups and said the state government was opposed to it.

Following the controversy, home ministry officials on Monday blamed an “over-enthusiastic” bureaucrat in the foreign ministry who chose to take up the issue with the home ministry after the Bangladeshi side had raised the demand at a bilateral meet some time ago. The opinion of the home ministry was sought both on visafree entry for certain age group of Bangladeshis and a visa-on-arrival regime for all Bangladeshi nations, an official said.

“Both proposals were rejected. The demographics of Assam and two other states has been changed due to Bangladeshi infiltration and a visa-free regime, even for select age-groups, or a visa-on-arrival facility is not feasible in this light,” a home ministry official said.

Gogoi, meanwhile, said he had “not compromised with national security” by divulging the said proposal as he stressed that BJP was taking a U-turn on the issue of Bangladeshi migrants by proposing to relax the regime after promising to tighten the same during the 2014 election campaign.