The Intelligence Bureau has alerted the Assam Home Department, saying some inmates of relief camps in the violence-affected Dhubri district have gone missing and are suspected to have crossed over to Bangladesh.
Assam Home Secretary G.D. Tripathi told The Hindu that he had received the IB input, which also indicated that some inmates had crossed over to West Bengal. However, the exact number of missing inmates was not given by the IB, he said.
Asked whether the State government had ascertained the input, Mr. Tripathi said unless the camp registers were verified and corroborated with particulars of those who had already left camps and those still staying back, it could not be immediately done.
He said the Deputy Commissioners of districts would have information on the number of people who had left the camps but they would not be in a position to say where all inmates had gone.
Even if if the number of missing persons was a few hundreds, it might not be possible to immediately trace them for, about 1.92 lakh inmates were taking shelter in 213 camps in Kokrajhar, Dhubri, Chirang, Bongaingaon and Barptea districts as on Wednesday. They include 1,75,219 inmates in 183 camps for Muslims and 17,630 people in 30 camps for Bodos. Dhubri district had the highest number of 134 camps for Muslims sheltering 1,05,390 inmates. An official report stated that during the last 24 hours 48 inmates had left camps in the district.
Earlier in the day, Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi reiterated that only genuine Indian citizens taking shelter in relief camps would be rehabilitated.
Bodoland Territorial Council authorities had insisted that land documents and names in voter lists be checked first to ensure that only genuinely displaced people were rehabilitated in BTAD. Accordingly, the government started the process of verification of land documents of camp inmates in the first phase rehabilitation.
Mr. Tripathi said the government had on Tuesday sent a proposal to the Union Home Ministry for increasing the number of Foreigners Tribunals from 36 to 100 for detection of undocumented migrants staying in Assam to facilitate quick disposal of pending cases.
