India seeks Dhaka’s help to send back illegal Bangladeshis: MEA | India News
New Delhi: The government on Thursday sought cooperation from Dhaka on the “core issue” of repatriation of illegal Bangladeshis in India. Speaking on the issue for the first time after the Bengal poll results, the MEA urged Bangladesh to speed up the pending nationality verification of around 3,000 persons for easy repatriation of illegal immigrants. “This requires cooperation… More than 2,862 nationality verification cases are pending with Bangladesh, some for five years,” said MEA’s Randhir Jaiswal. India’s policy is that all illegal foreign nationals staying in India must be repatriated in accordance with Indian laws, procedures and established bilateral arrangements. “We hope Bangladesh will speed up the nationality verification so that the repatriation of illegal immigrants can go smoothly,” MEA spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said. The comments came in response to media queries on a social media post by Bangladesh Foreign Minister Khalilur Rahman on the issue on Tuesday in which he said Dhaka would take action if there was any “push-in” incident from India. “These comments must be seen in the context of the core issue of repatriation of illegal Bangladeshis from India. Bangladesh’s cooperation is needed for this,” Jaiswal said. He also answered another question on possible cooperation between Bangladesh and China in Teesta river management. “…We have 54 rivers that the two countries share. We have created bilateral mechanisms to discuss all water related issues. These bilateral mechanisms continue to meet at regular intervals,” he said. According to Bangladesh’s Basas news agency, Rahman sought his involvement and support in the Teesta project during his visit to China.
