KENDRAPARA: The issue of deportation of Bangladeshi immigrants from the coastal district of Kendrapara has cropped up again with the Union Government making moves in the direction.
The Union Ministry of Home Affairs has written to the Registrar General of India (RGI) to take necessary action to update the National Register of Citizens (NRC) in respect of Kendrapara district.
The Ministry’s move is based on a report by High Court-appointed Amicus Curiae Mohit Agarwal.
On November 26, 2018, Agarwal had filed the report in the Orissa High Court and sought directions to the Central and State Governments to update the NRC in Kendrapara as a large number of illegal immigrants from Bangladesh are destroying the mangrove forests and ecology of Bhitarkanika National Park.
The court had directed the High Powered Committee formed under the Chairmanship of Additional Chief Secretary, Forest and Environment department, Odisha, to take appropriate action on the report.
The Committee in its meeting on June 24, this year, had decided to recommend to the Home Department to seek permission from the Centre for preparation of NRC in the district. However, the State Government subsequently had backed out of pursuing it further.
With the latest development, the issue has come back to haunt all the 1,551 Bangladeshi immigrants, who were served ‘Quit India’ notice in 2005 by the State Government.
Deepak Mandal (45) of Pitapatha village under Mahakalapada block claimed that he was wrongly served the ‘Quit India’ notice despite being born in Kendrapara.
“My grandfather came to Pitapatha from Midnapore district of West Bengal in 1948. We are not Bangladeshis,” he said.
Another villager of Hariabanka Bhabotosh Ray (46), whose grandfather came to Kendrapara from Khulna district of Bangladesh in 1971, hoped that the Narendra Modi Government’s move to amend the Citizenship Act, 1995, will work in their favour.
The Bill seeks to grant Indian nationality to immigrants belonging to Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Jain, Parsi and Christian communities of Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan after six years of stay in the country. “After passing of the Bill, nobody will call us foreigners,” he said.
Other Hindu immigrants who have been branded as Bangladeshis by the administration and face deportation are Ramesh Mandal and Sapan Biswas of Hariabanka besides Biswajit Mandal of Bahakuda.
Kendrapara Collector Samarth Verma said no decision has yet been taken on deportation of the identified 1,551 immigrants. “We have also not received any order from the Government to prepare NRC in the district,” he added.
In 2015, Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik had informed the Assembly that 3,987 Bangladeshi immigrants were illegally staying in the State.
The highest number of 1,649 infiltrators were living in Kendrapara followed by 1,112 in Jagatsinghpur. Other districts where such illegal immigrants can be found residing are Malkangiri, Bhadrak, Balasore, Nabarangpur and Bargarh.