Police to Karnataka HC: Initiating deportation when illegals held or FIR filed.

Source – indianexpress.com

The Karnataka government is initating deportation procedures against alleged illegal immigrants in the state as soon as an immigrant is arrested or an FIR is registered, the state government told Karnataka High Court on Thursday in a report filed in connection with two PILs seeking deportation of illegal immigrants in the state.

“The deportation process is initiated at least three months before completion of sentence of foreigners and for this process the instructions are laid down in a Government of India letter dated July 1, 2019 which is followed scrupulously,’’ the Karnataka government told the High Court in connection with PILs filed by the Bharat Punarutthana Trust, run by VHP leader Girish Bharadwaj and local advocate K B Vijaykumar.

Besides seeking deportation of all illegal immigrants, the PILs have sought the setting up of a special investigation force to find illegal immigrants and to carry out deportation procedures.

“In view of the time taken for nationality verification and issue of travel documents by Embassy/High Commission of the country concerned the process of deportation is initiated immediately on arrest of the foreigner or on filing of FIR whichever is earlier…,’’ says the report.

In November when the PILs were first heard, the high court directed Karnataka to provide “details of the action initiated against illegal immigrants’’.

There are “103 cases registered against 270 illegal immigrants in the last three years in the state of Karnataka for various offenses under different laws’’, the state government has said in its report.