Guwahati, Feb 3: AIUDF MLA Aminul Islam on February 2 pushed back against assertions that Assam is home to a large number of illegally residing Bangladeshi Muslims, claiming that a comprehensive house-to-house survey would reveal no more than around 1,000 such individuals across the state.
Speaking on the ongoing debate over illegal immigration, Islam said the citizenship status of Muslim residents in Assam has already undergone repeated and stringent verification through various official processes over the years. He argued that no other community has faced scrutiny as intense as Muslims during the National Register of Citizens (NRC) exercise, where documents were examined multiple times.
Referring to the second draft of the NRC, the AIUDF legislator pointed out that nearly 19 lakh people were excluded from the list, of whom about 12 lakh were non-Muslims, while Muslims accounted for roughly 6 to 7 lakh. He stressed that exclusion from the NRC does not automatically render an individual a Bangladeshi national or a foreigner.
Islam noted that those left out of the NRC are legally entitled to approach Foreigners Tribunals after receiving rejection slips. According to him, once documentary evidence is placed before the tribunals, a significant majority of excluded Muslim applicants — nearly 90 per cent — are expected to be recognised as Indian citizens.
On the basis of these figures, he maintained that the actual number of Bangladeshi Muslims living illegally in Assam would be minimal. Islam alleged that the scale of the issue is often overstated for political reasons, despite repeated verification exercises and existing legal safeguards.
His remarks come at a time when illegal immigration, NRC outcomes and the identification of foreigners continue to dominate Assam’s political discourse, particularly in the run-up to elections.
