Introduction: India says it will send them across anyway
New Delhi: A serious confrontation is building up between India and Bangladesh on the question of deportation of Bangladeshis from India with both countries sticking to their positions.
While Bangladesh says there is no question of accepting deportees from India, the latter is in no mood to suspend its deportation drive.
‘‘How do you call them Bangladeshis? Are they carrying Bangladeshi passports or any other identification? There is no question of accepting them,’’ said, minister (press) in the Bangladesh Embassy Anwarool Haque, repeating the allegation of his Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Riaz Rahman that India was deporting its own people. Rahman levelled the allegation in Dhaka during his meeting with some foreign diplomats yesterday.
On the other hand, Indian foreign ministry spokesman Navtej Sarna said the charge that India was deporting Bangla-speaking Indians was ‘‘baseless and absurd’’.
Sarna said India faced a serious problem of illegal immigrants. Asked if India would continue the deportation drive, Sarna said the agencies had a job to do. In effect, Sarna repeated the claim of Indian deputy high commissioner in Dhaka Dilip Sinha.
Refuting Rahman’s accusation in Dhaka, Sinha earlier reiterated New Delhi’s concern about illegal Bangladeshis in India.
Continuing with his offensive, Haque asked if India would accept deportation from Bangladesh. In the same breath, he said his ‘very self-respecting country’ looked forward to having better relations and do business with India. Questioned as to how his country could call the illegal Bangladeshis Indian, he replied they were living in India for decades.
This is the second time deportation of Bangladeshis living illegally in India has stirred a hornet’s nest. Earlier in 1998, then Shiv Sena-Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government in Maharashtra had to suspend deportation for around three months after West Bengal’s Communist government refused to co-operate.
Recently in a conference of state chief secretaries and director generals of police, Deputy Prime Minister L K Advani exhorted the states to deport all illegal Bangladeshis from India.
‘‘India shall no longer be a soft state. We shall identify, locate and throw out the 1.5 crore illegal Bangladeshis and 11,500 Pakistanis who have overstayed,’’ Advani said.
According to Maharashtra’s Minister of State for Home in the Vilasrao Deshmukh Ministry, Kripashankar Singh, Mumbai has continued to deport Bangladeshis. There are around a lakh Bangladeshis living illegally in the metropolis.
The 1991 consensus put the total Bangla-speaking population in Mumbai at 1,61,497.
Till 1998, the state had deported
over 8,000 Bangladeshis from Mumbai.