Family declared as illegal migrants held in Morigaon

GUWAHATI: Morigaon Police sent three persons of a 'foreigner' family to a Tezpur detention camp on Tuesday. Ratindra Das, his wife Sumitra Das and their minor boy were apprehended by police from Nellie area, some 73 km from here, on Monday night.
Morigaon superintendent of police Swapnaneel Deka said the family was declared to be foreigner by a foreigners' tribunal earlier. "They were found to be illegal citizens and declared foreigners by a tribunal in 2012. Since then, they have been avoiding detention."

According to a previous state police record, Morigaon district has the highest numbers of 'declared foreigners' who are fugitives. Sources said 4,855 persons have been tagged as 'missing foreigners' here. Earlier, Assam Police had sought public help to track down thousands of suspected foreigners. Police have been publishing lists of such fugitive foreigners in local newspapers from time to time seeking information about their whereabouts. Besides Morigaon, districts like Nagaon, Dibrugarh, Jorhat and Sivasagar also have very high numbers of missing foreigners.

Last week, parliamentary affairs minister Chandra Mohan Patowary said the foreigners' tribunals have taken up at least 2,44,144 complaints of 'D' voters (doubtful voters) so far, out of which 1,31,034 cases have been disposed of so far.