Ranchi: The Jharkhand High Court has raised questions over the submission made by the Deputy Commissioners (DCs) of all the six district of Santhal Division in which they have informed the court that no infiltration of Bangladeshi nationals has taken place in Santhal.
Hearing on a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) filed by Daniel Danish, the court asked the DCs that how come the tribal population has reduced if no infiltration has taken place in the region, what are the reason behind the decline in the tribal population? The court during the hearing also pulled up the central agencies for their late response into the matter and instructed them to file their responses before the next hearing.
This comes after the DCs of Godda, Sahibganj, Deoghar, Jamtara, Pakud and Dumka districts submitted an affidavit in the case stating no illegal infiltration has taken place in the aforementioned districts. Following the response of the DCs, the high court’s bench directed the authorities to provide detail explanations and documentations on Aadhar and Voter ID processing in the next hearing. The court will next hear the matter on September 5.
Meanwhile reacting to the observation made by the court, incumbent president of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Babu Lal Marandi in a post on social media platform X said, that “the decreasing population of tribals in Jharkhand is a bitter truth”.
The honourable high court while expressing concern over the declining population of tribal community had sought a reply from the DCs of Santhal Pargana but the DCs have mislead the court by hiding the reality of decline in the population of tribal community, alleged Marandi in his tweet.
झारखंड में आदिवासियों की घटती आबादी एक कड़वी सच्चाई है।
हालिया कुछ सालों के दौरान बांग्लादेशी मुसलमानों के अप्रत्याशित घुसपैठ के कारण आदिवासी समाज की आबादी में निरंतर गिरावट आई है, जिस पर चिंता व्यक्त करते हुए माननीय उच्च न्यायालय ने संथाल परगना के उपायुक्तों से जवाब मांगा था।… pic.twitter.com/xpTwf2hHIV
— Babulal Marandi (@yourBabulal) August 27, 2024
Notably, the court had earlier instructed the DCs of all the districts of Santhal division along with the concerned central agencies to file a status report on the issue of alleged Bangladeshi infiltration in the region.
The court during the last hearing on the matter had also questioned the state that why services of special branch is not being utilised to identify the illegal infiltration. The observation came in response of the state government’s earlier submission that local authorities including the police administration are facing difficulty in identifying such infiltrators.
The bench had also directed the DCs of all the districts of Santhal division to conduct identification of infiltrators having documents such as ration card, voter card and others on the basis of the ‘record of rights’ (documents pertaining to land records and ownership).
The bench further had issued notices to the Director of the Intelligence Bureau (IB), Director General of Border Security Force (BSF), Director General of Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) and Chief Election Commission of India (ECI) seeking a response from them into the matter.
Significantly, the High Court on July 3 had issued directives to the state and union governments to make an action plan to identify and deport illegal Bangladeshi infiltrators from tribal-dominated Santhal division of the state.
This comes after the petitioner in his plea had claimed that a surge has been noted in emergence of Madrasas in the region along incidents linked to illegal infiltrators exploiting local women of Scheduled Tribes (ST) community and occupying their lands through means of conversion and marriages which needs to be stopped.
The petition further had indicated about the possible planned involvement of certain banned Bangladeshi groups behind the surge in such cases following which the court had instructed the DCs of all the district under the Santhal division to prepare an action plan and take steps to stop illegal Bangladeshi intruders from entering the state.
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