The Uttar Pradesh government has announced a drive to identify foreigners, verify their papers and deport/jail them if found illegal. It has also decided to identify officers/middlemen who helped these people get fake identification documents and take strict action against them.
On October 1, the State’s Director General of Police O.P. Singh wrote to all district police chiefs, Deputy Inspectors General of Police, Inspectors General of Police and zonal police heads instructing them to identify “foreigners” , mainly Bangladeshis, in their respective districts, get their identification papers verified and if found fake deport/jail them.
The DGP insists that this has been an annual “ritual” since 2015 and has nothing to do with the National Register of Citizens (NRC). Even if the police conducted any such exercise every year, it was obviously a discreet one. This year, it has acquired a different dimension because the NRC has become a major controversy across the country.
Home minister Amit Shah makes it a point to raise the issue at every forum, and even on October 1, addressing a public meeting in West Bengal, he said the BJP would implement the NRC all over the country. “All illegal foreigners will be deported,” he declared.
The DGP’s letter directs police officials across the State to inspect railways stations, bus stands, and settlements on government land and identify all foreigners, especially Bangladeshis, living there, verify their papers and either deport or jail if they were found to be staying illegally.
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