Will identify and deport every illegal immigrant: Amit Shah

Source: indiatoday.in

Home Minister Anit Shah on Wednesday said that the Centre will identify illegal immigrants staying in any part of the country and deport them as per the international law. Amit Shah also said that the National Register of Citizens (NRC) was a part of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) election manifesto and would definitely be implemented throughout the country.

Amit Shah’s statement came after Samajwadi Party (SP) member Javed Ali Khan asked him if the National Register of Citizens (NRC) will be implemented in other states as well.

Responding to the question in the Rajya Sabha, Amit Shah said that it was the NRC based on which the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) came to power after the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.

“It is a very good question. The NRC is part of the Assam Accord and was also in (BJP’s) election manifesto based on which the government has come to power. The government will identify illegal immigrants living on every inch of the country’s soil and will deport them as per the international law,” Amit Shah said.

Currently, the NRC is being updated under the Supreme Court’s monitoring in Assam and July 31 has been set as a deadline for final publication of the registered NRC data.

Noting that the Centre has received many representations for extending the NRC deadline in Assam, Minister of State (MoS) for Home Affairs Nityanand Rai said a petition signed by about 25 lakh applicants submitted to the Centre and the President demanded an extension to correct anomalies.

Since many genuine names have been left out and many bogus names are registered, the minister said, “So the government has requested the (Supreme) Court to extend the time for this purpose”.

“There will be some delay but the NRC will be implemented properly without any faults,” Nityanand Rai said. He asserted that the government’s intention is to ensure no genuine citizen is left out of the NRC.

To a query on the number of Rohingya Muslims in India, Nityanand Rai said, “We don’t have an accurate data. They are spread across the country. Some of them have gone back to Bangladesh. We will get the data soon.”

The government’s intention is to ensure no illegal immigrant is registered under the NRC. Foreigner tribunals have also been set up to curb illegal stay of foreigners in India, he added.