Mizoram Govt Launches Foreigner Detection Drive in "Unauthorized Villages"

Aizawl, March 12, 2020:

The Mizoram government is carrying out a massive "foreigner detection drive" in the unauthorized villages of Lunglei district along the Bangladesh border.

A joint initiative of the home department of Mizoram and the Local Administration Department (LAD) has been initiated in the border areas to identify the illegal settlements of foreigners in what is being termed "unauthorized villages"

While speaking with Inside Northeast, LAD secretary Rodney Ralte said that the government had taken the drive in its own hands because the paramilitary forces were "not performing their duties well."

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Ralte said, "There has been a lot of influx, especially in the areas of the Chakma Autonomous Council's Lunglei district. The paramilitary forces, which have been assigned there for restricting foreigners are not doing their duties well. They just send NIL reports to the home department. Therefore, we are carrying out this detection drive of foreigners settled in these villages."

Ralte added, "We have received reports that unauthorized villages have come up in Lunglei, mostly inhabited by foreigners. They are very easy to migrate. They have a habit of setting up of habitats, which later on become village, thereby increasing the population of the state. In order to set up a village, they require the permission of the Mizoram government or the LAD. However, the LAD is not informed of anything like that.

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Ralte informed that the decision for the detection drive was decided in a meeting held in January 2020. "We entrusted the home department with a detection drive since we wanted to know where the foreigners came from and when they started settling in the state."

Ralte also quashed the reports of carrying out an National Register of Citizens or NRC-like drive as alleged by the Chakmas of the State. Recently, the Chakma community of Mizoram had sought Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s intervention in stopping the state government from conducting the “Illegal National Register of Citizens (NRC)”, which according to the community is a “state-sponsored exercise” to identify them as “foreigners”.

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