GUWAHATI, Nov 25?The North East Students? Organisa-tion (NESO) has initiated a move to highlight the problem created in the North Eastern region by unabated infiltration of foreign nationals at the international forum and as the first step in this direction, a delegation of the organisation participated in a seminar organised recently at Bangkok by Forum Asia and SUARAM, a Malaysia based human rights organisation, where representatives of human rights organisations from 22 countries as well as a representative of the office of UN High Commissioner for Human Rights took part.
Addressing a Press confere-nce here today, NESO chairman Samujjal Bhattacharya, who is also the adviser of the All Assam Students? Union (AASU), said that as the Government of India is not serious on solving the problem of infiltration of foreigners, which posed a threat to the identity of the indigenous people, the organisation decided to bring the matter to the notice of the international organisations including the United Nations.
He said that the NESO is seeking help from the international organisations to put pressure on the Government of India to take effective steps for the solution of the problem. The NESO representatives also highlighted the discriminatory nature of the Illegal Migrants (Determination by Tribunals) Act, which is applicable only in Assam, he added.
The general secretary of the NESO, NSN Lotha, who was a part of the NESO delegation, which participated in the Bangkok meet, said that the main point of focus of the delegation in the meet was to highlight the threat to the identity of the people of the region because of unabated infiltration of foreigners. He said that the NESO would continue to highlight the issue in other international forum like the UN Working Group on Indigenous People in the days to come to put pressure on the Government of India to take effective steps to solve the problem.
Reiterating the demand to scrap the IMDT Act, Lotha said that the Act was a threat to the security of the nation as it gives protection to foreign nationals and even to terrorists. He said that the Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh insulted the people of the region by praising the Act at a time when the people of the region are demanding scrapping of the same. He warned that the NESO would never allow the Act to be imposed in other States of the region and continue the fight for the scrapping of the same from Assam.
In the paper presented in the international seminar, the NESO highlighted the problem of illegal migration of foreigners into the region and alleged that over the years, successive Governments at the Centre failed to stop the demographic onslaught and rather political parties used the migrants as vote banks.
The NESO said that in 1997, the then Union Home Minister Indrajit Gupta stated in the Parliament that there were 10 million illegal migrants residing in the country, of which, 5.4 million were in Tripura and four million were in Assam. The NESO also referred to the report submitted to the President of India by the then Governor of Assam, Lt Gen (Retd) SK Sinha on the problem of influx of foreigners in 1998 as well as the reports of the Group of Ministers and the Law Commission on the issue and called for scrapping of the IMDT Act.
The NESO further said that infiltration of foreigners is one of the main reasons for terrorism and posed a threat not only to the demographic pattern but also to the ethnic and cultural identity of the people of North East region.