The Assam government on Saturday directed its border police to “launch sustained efforts to locate and apprehend persons who have absconded after being declared foreigners by the foreigners tribunals”.

Earlier this week, 28 persons, including nine women, from Barpeta district were shifted to a transit camp in Goalpara after they were declared foreigners by the tribunal.

“These people were declared foreigners by the foreigners tribunal after proper hearings,” Barpeta Superintendent of Police Sushanta Biswa Sarma said, according to The Indian Express. “As per its order, we carried out the transfer of these foreign nationals to the camp.”

Foreigners tribunals are quasi-judicial bodies that determine if someone suspected of being a foreigner is in fact an Indian citizen. Assam is the only state in the country to have them.

People excluded from the National Register of Citizens for Assam or whose citizenship has been marked as “doubtful” can appeal to the tribunals.

In its notice to the Assam Police Border Organisation on Saturday, the home department also directed the implementation of “preventive and precautionary measures to intensify the detection and curb the movement of illegal migrants” across the state’s international borders.

Assam shares a border with Bhutan and Bangladesh.

The notice also claimed that recent reports indicated an “increase in the number of illegal immigrants being detected” in the state.

It said that 54 “illegal immigrants” had been identified in Assam since January, of whom 45 were deported while nine were arrested in Karimganj.

“Additionally, there have been reports of suspected non-Indian nationals and foreign-origin individuals in certain areas of the State, particularly in Upper Assam and North Assam districts,” it said. “The detection of such individuals is critical, given the potential threat to national security.”

The notice directed the implementation of measures such as strengthening border surveillance, enhancing coordination with the Border Security Force and other central agencies, improving means of gathering intelligence and stepping up enforcement of the Citizenship Amendment Act.

The contentious law provides a fast track to Indian citizenship for refugees from six minority religious communities, except Muslims, from Bangladesh, Afghanistan and Pakistan, on the condition that they have lived in India for six years and entered the country before December 31, 2014.

Later on Saturday, Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma also said that Aadhaar applicants in the state would be required to submit the receipt numbers of their applications for the National Register of Citizens, PTI reported.

Assam published a National Register of Citizens on August 31, 2019, to distinguish Indian citizens from undocumented migrants living in the state. Residents had to prove that they or their ancestors had entered Assam before midnight on March 24, 1971, to be included on the list.

Over 19 lakh persons, or 5.77% of the applicants, were left off the final list.

Saturday’s notice to the state border police also came against the backdrop of Assamese nationalist organisations allegedly threatening Miya Muslims in Upper Assam to leave the administrative region.

The threats were issued after the alleged gangrape of a 14-year-old girl in the Dhing area of Assam’s Nagaon district on August 22.

A 24-year-old, identified as Tafazul Islam, was among three persons accused in the case.

The term “Miya Muslims” refers to Muslims of Bengali origin who are often falsely accused of being “illegal immigrants”. The administrative division of Upper Assam, comprising nine districts, is the heartland of Assamese politics and is home to several ethnic communities.

On July 5, the BJP government in Assam asked the state’s border police not to forward cases of non-Muslims who entered India illegally before 2014 to foreigners tribunals.

This means that Hindu Bengalis and other non-Muslims in the state will, for the time being, not be prosecuted by the tribunals. Existing cases, however, will not be dropped.

The border police, which investigates citizenship cases, was told that non-Muslim foreigners should “be advised” to apply for citizenship on the Citizenship Amendment Act portal and that their cases would be decided by the Union government.

However, only eight persons in Assam had applied for citizenship under the contentious law since its rules were notified, Sarma said on July 15. This is because most individuals want to prove their citizenship in a court of law, he added.

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