Ethnic groups ask Bangladesh, Nepal migrants to leave Indian state

The Associated PressPublished: April 12, 2007
http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/04/12/asia/AS-GEN-India-Migrants.php

GAUHATI, India: Illegal migrants from Bangladesh and Nepal have started leaving a northeastern Indian state after dominant ethnic groups there set a May 1 deadline for their departure, police said Thursday.

There is a strong anti-migrant feeling in India's remote northeast, where tens of thousands of people from outside the region have taken jobs and set up businesses.

There was no panic over the situation, due to police and paramilitary forces' strong presence in the area, said Meghalaya state Police Chief B. K. Dey Sawain.

"There is no large scale-exodus, but floating migrant workers are leaving the state," Sawain said.

Most migrants in Meghalaya work in coal mines on the Bangladesh border, said Emlang Lyttan, president of the Federation of Khasi, Jaintia and Garo People.

The Khasi, Jaintia and Garo — ethnic minority tribal groups who live mostly in India's northeast — have set a May 1 deadline for all migrants to be out of Meghalaya state.

Lyttan did not say what action would be taken against any who defy the deadline.

There are no government estimates of the number of illegal migrants from Bangladesh and Nepal in the area. Lyttan said there are about 12,000 in Meghalaya.

India shares a twisting, porous, 4,000-kilometer (2,500-mile) border with Bangladesh. Indian residents near the frontier fear they could soon be outnumbered by Bangladeshi migrants.

Indian authorities have completed 2,000 kilometers (1,240 miles) of a floodlit fence they are building along the border, mainly to keep out job-seeking immigrants.

Lyttan said tribal leaders largely blame migrants for rising crime — robberies, rapes and vehicle hijackings — in the area.

He also warned coal mine owners against employing foreign migrants.

"We are, however, not against migrant workers from elsewhere in India who are out here in search of jobs," he told The Associated Press.

Last year, the United Liberation Front of Asom — an ethnic minority-based group which has been fighting since 1979 for an independent state in India's northeast — asked "all Indians who migrated to Assam to leave that state," which is also in the northeast.

Most Indian migrant workers from other states ignored the ULFA's call.

The rebel group has since gunned down nearly 100 migrant workers from India's Bihar state.