India’s Bharatiya Janta Party leaders, especially Home Minister Amit Shah has been outspoken about deporting the “illegal Bangladeshis” whose names were left out of the National Register of Citizens (NRC) in Assam.
Foreign minister S Jaishankar during his visit to Dhaka said that this was entirely India’s internal issue, and has maintained a diplomatic front, assuring Bangladesh that there was no reason for concern.
However, India’s foreign ministry spokesperson Raveesh Kumar during a media call on Thursday (Sept 13) refused to provide a straight answer to a question regarding the matter indicating that Delhi cannot assure those left out of the list won’t be deported.
As you rightly said that no country can allow any illegal people to stay. So at the end of the tribunal process, are we actually going to send these illegal Bangladeshis back? Have we taken up the issue with Bangladesh?
Raveesh Kumar: I did quote you what Jaishankar said in Bangladesh. He mentioned that it is an internal matter.
We are talking about a process that is fairly long. We are talking about the tribunal, about the legal process, the high court, supreme court.
You see it is too much into the future. Let us not talk about what will happen and how the whole thing is going to be sorted out.
What we understand is that it has been a fair, transparent process and what happens in the future that will be decided at a later stage. I have no answer to that.