Rohingyas’ influx troubles Assam yet again

By Nava Thakuria*

Guwahati:  There are public concerns about a renewed influx of Rohingyas from Bangladesh and the issue is making headlines in local media and sparked heated debates on local television channels following the arrest of 47 touts, who were facilitating Rohingyas to come inside India illegally, and supplying forged documents, following a nationwide crackdown on November 9, 2023.

The arrests revealed that currently taking shelter in south Bangladesh after fleeing from Myanmar six years back, the Rohingyas have now started entering India again through West Bengal and Tripura with the help of linguistic proximity.

The people’s sentiments as expressed in various media outlets is that the issue needs a proactive and timely response from the people in power after the National Investigation Agency (NIA) along with Assam Police and other responsible security agencies picked up 25 middlemen from Tripura, five from Assam, three from Bengal as well as nine from Karnataka, three from Tamil Nadu and one each from Telangana and Haryana.

After the media briefing by Assam’s special Director General of Police, Harmeet Singh, the State police chief GP Singh disclosed that it’s a pan-India network of touts which deals with the Stateless people’s entry to India.

Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma termed the arrest (of middlemen) as a great success and an excellent synergy between the responsible forces. Sarma, also in charge of the State home portfolio, commented that Rohingya’s infiltration emerged as a threat to national security, and their nefarious designs must be extinguished with due surveillance. He also recommended a National Investigation Agency (NIA) probe into the matter.

The Rohingya crisis surfaced after a religious terrorist outfit attacked many border outposts of Myanmar (also known as Burma or Brahmadesh) which invited a brutal crackdown by the Burmese forces in August 2017. No less than 7,00,000 Rohingyas fled to neighbouring Bangladesh to escape the atrocities of Burmese soldiers. The terrified Rohingya families including women and children were given shelter at makeshift camps in Bangladesh. Unconfirmed reports say around 3,00,000 Burmese Muslims had previously left their country following political turmoil from time to time.

This journalist was also invited to be part of a discussion on the subject in a television programme anchored by a Guwahati-based news television channel, ND24 TV’s chief editor Rajdeep Bailung Baruah, since the sensitive issue continues to haunt the Assamese community. The migration of Bangladeshi nationals had earlier provoked the anti-foreigner movement in the state from 1979 to 1985, which was led by the All Assam Students’ Union (AASU), and culminated with the signing of the historic Assam Accord.

Participating in the discussion from New Delhi, senior journalist Deepak Dewan, who has covered northeast India for more than four decades, said hundreds of Rohingya women were working as housemaids in the national capital region identifying themselves as Bengalis from Assam. According to him, the common residents of Delhi, Noida or Haryana cannot distinguish the difference in accent between a Bengali, a Bangladeshi and a Bangla-speaking Rohingya. Moreover, often they wear traditional Hindu attire to work in the households hiding their Muslim identity.

Samujjal Kumar Bhattacharya, chief adviser to AASU and North East Students’ Organization, asserted that agitating people of the region identified the problem of influx at least four decades back, but New Delhi did not take the issue seriously. The Centre remains insensitive to the issue and hence even after 38 years of the accord, Assamese people are still deprived of due political importance in their own land. Bhattacharya insisted on a major crackdown operation against the Rohingyas, as earlier done against armed militant outfits of the region, to wipe out the new threat.

Another guest Aabhijeet Sarma, who leads a non-government organisation Assam Public Works that approached the Supreme Court in 2009 to update the 1951 National Register of Citizens (NRC) in Assam, also supported the idea of a massive operation against the Rohingyas as they have slowly emerged as a serious threat to the nation. Retired Indian Police Service officer Pallab Bhattacharya stated that the NRC data should be used to verify the identity of illegal migrants from both Bangladesh and Myanmar. Expressing concern over the threat, he hoped that the Centre would take necessary actions over the matter.

*Senior journalist