Assam allows district authorities, police to expel ‘illegal migrants’, bypass foreigner tribunals
The Assam Cabinet on Tuesday approved the framing of a standard operating procedure under the 1950 Immigrants Expulsion from Assam Act, which grants power to district commissioners and senior superintendents of police to expel “illegal migrants” from the state by bypassing the foreigners tribunals.
Currently, cases pertaining to undocumented migrants are handled by foreigners tribunals.
The announcement on Tuesday came months after Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma informed the Assembly in June that the state government was planning to invoke the 1950 law to “push back” more suspected foreigners.
Since the April 22 Pahalgam terror attack, the police in several states ruled by the Bharatiya Janata Party have been detaining Bengali-speaking persons – mostly Muslims – and asked them to prove that they are Indian citizens.
Several persons have been forced into Bangladesh after they allegedly could not prove their Indian citizenship. In some cases, persons who were mistakenly sent to Bangladesh returned to the country after state authorities in India proved that they were Indians.
In his statement in June, Sarma had claimed that the expulsion of declared foreigners was justified in the legal framework provided by the Immigrants Expulsion from Assam Act.
The chief minister had said that the Supreme Court in October 2024 upheld Section 6A of the 1955 Citizenship Act, which gave “sweeping powers to the Assam government” to act under the...
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