Bhubaneswar, Jan. 12: The ouster axe is likely to fall soon on more than 1,500 illegal Bangladeshi migrants of Kendrapara district.

?The district administration had identified them in 2003 and sent a report to the government seeking permission for their deportation,? said Kendrapara superintendent of police Dayal Gangwar, adding that most of the 1,551 illegal settlers are concentrated in Mahakalpada block of the district.

?We will issue eviction notices to all of them within the next two days. We will forcibly deport them if they don?t leave on their own,? Gangwar said.

Notices will be served on the illegal migrants by the respective block development officers, tehsildars and the police, he added.

The initial survey, conducted in 2001, had revealed that more than 3,500 Bangladeshi nationals had settled in several coastal and interior districts of Orissa. Kendrapara alone accounts for than 2,300 migrants. In 2002, 25 Bangladeshi nationals were repatriated from Navrangpur district.

The state has divided Bangladeshi nationals living into three categories. Those who came to Orissa before March 25, 1971 will not be deported. The cases of those who came between March 25, 1971 and December 16, 1971 have been referred to the central government for a decision, Gangwar said.

?We have initiated the deportation of those who arrived after December 16, 1971,? he added. The government has deported 103 infiltrators between 1973 and 1993.

Kendrapara district collector Hemant Sharma said the administration will have to forcibly evict the migrants if they fail to comply with the state order.

In December last year, the Supreme Court had issued notices to the Centre on the unchecked flow of Bangladeshi immigrants into the country after a public interest litigation by the India Image Foundation alleged that over 3 lakh migrants were entering India every year.

The petition listed West Bengal as a major recipient of such immigrants. It also said the Assamese faced the danger of being reduced to a minority in their home state as Bangladeshi immigrants would soon outnumber them.