The Union Ministry of Home Affairs has instructed the Manipur Government to take swift measures to capture the biometric data of illegal immigrants. In order to ensure that the exercise is completed in a time bound manner four officials from the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) arrived in Imphal to provide training to the officials. Peter Salam, joint secretary of the state Home Department stated that directions have been issued to all the district authorities to identify in their respective districts the illegal immigrants.
The NCRB team would provide three days training. However, the collection of the biometric data commenced from foreigners’ Detention Centre at Sajiwa in Imphal East from 10 am on July 29. Here at this detention centre, 104 inmates including 24 men, 74 women, and six minors are lodged and they had crossed over to the Indian side in the past two years.
The Ministry of Home Affairs in its notice has directed that the exercise of capturing the data of illegal immigrants has to be completed by the Manipur government by September 30.
On instructions of the Ministry of Home Affairs, Govt of India to complete the campaign for biometric capture of illegal Myanmar immigrants in the State of Manipur by September 2023, the Govt of Manipur has resumed its campaign for biometric capture of all illegal Myanmar… pic.twitter.com/sx68ji2ZOO
— ANI (@ANI) July 29, 2023
The decision for biometric capturing was taken at a joint meeting of MHA officials, representatives of Manipur, and Mizoram in New Delhi in April.
Soon after the state formed a cabinet sub-committee for the identification of illegal immigrants. The joint secretary informed that till now 2500 illegal immigrants have been identified and the highest number that is 1050 immigrants are found in Chandel.
Salam further informed that soon after the completion of the biometric process, date would be uploaded on the foreigners’ identification portal of the MHA and the link would be forwarded to the Election Commission of India. This would stop these illegal immigrants from getting voter id cards or Aadhaar Cards.
Between July 22 and July 23, 718 immigrants had crossed over and the security forces had pushed back 550 of them.
Recently, Chief Minister of Manipur N Biren Singh had said that illegal immigrants from Myanmar were one of the major causes of violence, drug menace and poppy cultivation in the state.
