Uttarakhand to identify illegal immigrants

Amid raging national row on illegal immigrants, the Uttarakhand Government, in a significant move, has initiated a process to identify such residents in the State. Though not officially confirmed, it is learnt that the State Government has alerted its agencies on the illegal immigrants and directed the administration to prepare detailed account of those who have been illegally residing in the State. Sources inform that the security agencies have set some settlements in Haridwar, Dehradun and Udham Singh Nagar districts on their radar. It is believed that there is a large number of Bangladeshis residing in these settlements. With support of some local politicians, many of them are supposed to have prepared documents like Aadhar cards and ration cards by way of proving their citizenship. “Most of these suspected Bangladeshis claimed that they were either from West Bengal or Assam while applying for ration cards and other documents in Uttarakhand. Now, the papers of all such people would be sent to the districts of the States they claim to hail from for verification,’’ said an official on condition of anonymity.

The issue of illegal immigrants in Uttarakhand came to the fore recently when the BJP MLA from Khanpur Assembly constituency in Haridwar district, Pranav Singh Champion claimed there was a large number of Rohingya Muslims (illegal immigrants from Myanmar) sneaking into Haridwar district. Following the claim made by the BJP MLA, the security agencies stepped up their vigilance in the some areas of Haridwar district where they are suspected to have settled in.

Quizzed over the issue of illegal immigrants settled in Uttarakhand, the State Government spokesperson and senior Cabinet Minister Madan Kaushik said on Saturday that there is no official information about the presence of the illegal immigrants in the State. He, however, added that the State Government is very serious on the issue and all the security agencies working for the State Government are on alert.