A fresh Public Interest Litigation was filed with India's Supreme Court on Friday seeking deportation of all illegal immigrants, including Rohingya refugees and 'Bangladeshi immigrants', within a year.
According to News18, advocate Ashwini Upadhyay filed the petition amid the raging debate on the deportation of Rohingya to Myanmar. The court is scheduled to hear the matter on October 3.
Upadhyay claimed Rohingya refugees would create a serious security threat to India.
He pointed out that states like Kerala had become a hot bed of illegal activities due to the infiltration of people he dubbed "Bangladeshi immigrants".
"In August 2016, a native of West Bengal was arrested in Kerala for insulting the national flag and he was later found to be an illegal immigrant from Bangladesh," he said.
"There is said to be major racket at the borders of West Bengal and Assam with Bangladesh, which provides illegal migrants with identity cards. Even Kerala police are reportedly finding it difficult to check the influx of these Bangladeshi illegal migrants,” reads the petition, reports News18.
The petition also said that the officials of Kerala State Intelligence found “large section of migrant labourers in Kerala claiming to be from West Bengal or even Assam were actually from Bangladesh.”
Senior advocate Colin Gonsalves, who is representing over 7,000 Rohingyas from Jammu, however, told News18: “Rohingyas deserve to live in India as they have a constitutional right to stay and not because of sympathy.
“It flows from Article 21 which guarantees Right to Life and it includes both citizens and as well as foreigners. Therefore the Constitution protects foreigners.
"Now if they are sent back then they will be raped, killed and houses will be burnt and lives would be under threat if the Indian government sends them back. Article 21 prohibits the government from causing a threat to life to anybody.”
Thursday, April 25, 2024
