New Delhi: The Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) has set a 30-day deadline for states and Union Territories to verify the credentials of people suspected to have illegally entered the country from Bangladesh and Myanmar, who claim to be Indian citizens.
If their documents are not verified within that 30-day period, the suspects will face deportation, the MHA has said.
There has been a major crackdown against Bangladeshi nationals, illegally staying in India, over the last several months. Thousands of people have been rounded up from cities like Surat, Ahmedabad, Mumbai and Delhi and sent to detention camps.
States like Odisha and Assam have also taken action against suspected illegal Bangladeshi immigrants. Such action has not gone down well with West Bengal, which has claimed that many of those detained are residents of the Murshidabad and Malda districts of the state.
But then, the Trinamool Congress that is in power in West Bengal has always been against any effort by the Centre to identify and deport illegal immigrants. West Bengal chief minister and Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee has been extremely vocal against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act or CAA that offers citizenship to Hindus, Sikhs, Christians, Buddhists and Jains who are facing persecution in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Bangladesh.
Mamata has claimed that the CAA is aimed against Muslims who have been living in India for generations. The Congress has also opposed the CAA.
The MHA, meanwhile, has asked states and UTs to invoke their statutory powers to detect, identify and deport illegal immigrants. The states have also been asked to establish sufficient district-level detention centres to hold individuals pending deportation.
