1641 migrants pushed back since Jan last year
Source: The Sangai Express

Jiribam, March 11 2015: A total of 1641 illegal migrants who tried to enter the State through Jiribam of Imphal East district were pushed back since January 2014 while 167 foreigners were allowed to enter the State within the same period.

CID (Special Branch) and OC Foreigner Check Post have been maintaining strict vigil on the movement of the migrants/foreigners at the FCP Jiribam.

According to official reports, a total of 1211 migrants/foreigners were pushed back due to incomplete documents or lack of identity proof in 2014 from Jiribam while 127 foreigners were allowed to enter the State in the last year.

In January 2014, 30 migrants/foreigners were pushed back.

60 in February, 145 in March, 83 in April, 79 in May, 49 in June, 38 in July, 252 in August, 65 in September, 260 in October, 99 in November and 51 in December were pushed back from Jiribam.

Altogether, 430 migrants were pushed back till March 9 this year.

During the same period, 40 foreigners were allowed entry to the State.

According to OC, CID (Special Branch), FCP, Tajuddin Khan, the personnel are keeping a strict vigil on the movement of illegal migrants at Jiribam.

Migrants with valid documents are allowed to enter the State while those without valid documents were denied entry and asked to return.

They are sent back with an advice to obtain valid documents in order to enter the State.

He said the personnel receive full support of the local people in this exercise.

An official, on anonymity, said that process of identifying illegal migrants/foreigners or preventing their large scale influx has been made difficult due to absence of rigorous Govt order in this regard.

The official said that hordes of non-local labourers have been brought in by various companies engaged in NH-37 and railway constructions.

Most of these labourers are from areas close to Bangladesh border of Tripura.

As such, these construction companies rushing in labourers from Bangladesh could not be ruled out.

The name and address of labourers, whether genuine or fake, brought in by the construction companies are given free passage, the official added.

No strict check or verification has been done at other check posts located at Nungba, Noney and Keithelmanbi thus making identification of illegal migrants more difficult when they reach Imphal or other places.

Most of the foreigners who have been allowed entry to the State are citizens of Japan, USA, UK, Israel, Slovenia, Australia, Spain, Belgium, Dutch, Germany, Austria, Finland and Italy.

Most of the pushed back visitors are from Karimganj district of Assam and different places of Tripura.

Visitors/migrants without proper identity proof are sent back with an advice to bring genuine identity proof or valid documents, the officials said.

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