No immediate deportation of people not in NRC, India has assured: Bangladesh

DHAKA: Prime Minister Narendra Modi has assured Bangladesh premier Sheikh Hasina that there will be no immediate deportation of people excluded from the National Register of Citizens of India, a Bangladeshi official said. Hussein Taufiq Imam, political advisor to Bangladesh PM said, deportations, if any, will be done in consultation with Bangladesh.

Addressing the international media at the Bangladesh Prime Minister’s Office in Dhaka on Thursday, Imam said, “Prime Minister Modi has himself assured our Prime Minister that there will not be any deportation for those not on the NRC list, at least in the near future. If at all there is any movement, that will be done in consultation with the Bangladesh,” he said. Imam said that there had been meetings between the country heads in the recent past where they spoke to each other on a number of issues, without elaborating further.

Bangladesh also chose not to comment on the 'termites' remark made by the BJP president Amit Shah. The BJP president had earlier said that illegal immigrants from Bangladesh are eating up the country like termites. “NRC is an internal issue of India and Bangladesh cannot comment on that. People who are in Assam, had gone many generations back. That was essentially an economic problem,” Imam said.