It said that state governments were not permitted to grant “any foreigner” the status of a “refugee” and that India was not a signatory to the United Nations Refugee Convention of 1951 or its 1967 Protocol
Sanathoi Bachaspatimayum
The Union Home Ministry had asked the governments of Manipur and Mizoram to register the biographical and biometric data, such as the retina, iris, and fingerprints, of ‘illegal migrants’ in the two states, of those who were on Indian soil days before the ethnic unrest broke out in Manipur.
On 28th April, Ajay Kumar Bhalla, the Union Home Secretary chaired the meeting in which the decision to record information on illegal migrants was arrived at. On June 22, the ministry wrote to the two states to complete the collection exercise by September 30.
On Monday, Rajkumar Imo Singh, a BJP legislator from Sagolband in Imphal West, shared the letter from the Home Ministry on Twitter. According to him, the effort was already launched by the Manipur government earlier this year, and as a result, approximately 2,500 “illegal migrants” were detected. “All districts have to arrange this up to the police station level as per the standardised format of NCRB (National Crime Records Bureau). Looks like this is a step towards NRC (National Register of Citizens),” Rajkumar Imo Singh, posted on Twitter.
It is further mentioned that a campaign for capturing biometric data of the illegal migrants in the States of Manipur and Mizoram is to be completed by the end of September 2023. The State governments of Manipur and Mizoram are requested to quickly prepare the plan and initiate the biometric capture of the illegal migrants,” mentioned in the letter sent to the Manipur Government.
According to the letter, the home ministry issued directives and instructions on “overstay and illegal migration of foreign nationals” in March 2021. All states received a new circulation of these regulations in October 2022.
The Chief Secretaries of Nagaland, Manipur, Mizoram, and Arunachal Pradesh were reportedly asked to “take appropriate action as per law to check illegal influx from Myanmar into India” in a letter dated 2021 that was sent to them. In addition, it said that state governments were not permitted to grant “any foreigner” the status of a “refugee” and that India was not a signatory to the United Nations Refugee Convention of 1951 or its 1967 Protocol.
N. Biren Singh, the Chief Minister of Manipur, on June 30 had also blamed illegal immigrants from Myanmar as the main reason for the violence in the state.
