Union home minister Amit Shah on Friday said the Centre would not only stop infiltration but also identify and expel every single infiltrator, asserting that the government would not allow artificial demographic changes in the country.

Addressing the Border Security Force (BSF) investiture ceremony and the annual Rustamji Memorial Lecture, Shah said a mission would be announced soon to curb illegal immigration from neighbouring countries, especially Bangladesh and Myanmar, and address artificial demographic changes.

“I want to talk about the issue of infiltration. The government of India has decided that it will not only stop illegal infiltration but also identify illegal infiltrators one by one and send them out of the country. The government will not allow artificial changes to our demography,” he said.

The home minister urged the BSF to coordinate with the local administration and police to identify and expel infiltrators.

Flagging that the BSF’s role will be more critical on the frontier with Bangladesh in the near future, Shah said the border guarding force would receive all help from the BJP governments in Bengal, Tripura and Assam as the three states “oppose infiltration as a matter of policy”.

Tripura and Assam were already under BJP rule, while the party recently registered a historic victory in Bengal. Shah said the Union home ministry would chair a meeting with the chief ministers of the three states to chart out a strategy to tackle infiltration into the country.

“The Union home ministry is soon going to chair a meeting with the CMs of these three states, and we will come out with a comprehensive strategy against illegal infiltration. The BSF also needs to come out with a robust mechanism to check infiltration and identify and deport those who sneak in,”
Shah said.

‘Smart border’

Shah said the government would launch a “smart border” project over the next year to make the 6,000km frontiers with Pakistan and Bangladesh impenetrable and ensure that the “conspiracy” to change the demography of the areas was defeated. The project will be aided by drones, radars, smart cameras and other technical resources to plug the gaps in border security.

Shah said the “conspiracy” to alter the demographic balance was not something the BSF alone could stop. He urged the border-guarding force to maintain communication with village officials, local police, district collectors and superintendents of police as they would have information on new infiltrators in a locality and the route used for the sneak-ins. It is the responsibility of the BSF to identify and shut down all these routes one by one, he said.

“The time has come to stop infiltration, which has been going on for years without any restrictions…. Many retired police officers had told me not to undertake the campaign to free the country of Maoists. They had said the same to the Prime Minister, too. But the Indian government remained steadfast, and the five-decade problem is now ending. India has become Naxal-free,” Shah said, adding that the BSF should now proceed with the same intensity against
infiltration.