New Delhi: Slum-dwellers of Delhi’s Kalindi Kunj, Shaheen Bagh, Jamia Nagar and Seelampur have said the authorities are conducting a door-to-door drive to check for “illegal immigrants from Bangladesh”, even as the police called it a “routine” exercise to keep tabs on those living illegally in the country.
The drive began Wednesday, a day after Lieutenant Governor V. K. Saxena directed the Delhi police commissioner to initiate “strict action” against “illegal Bangladeshi immigrants” residing in the city. It also comes on the heels of India raising concerns about attacks on Hindus and other minorities living in Bangladesh.
The L-G’s direction came after his meeting with ulemas (clerics) and Muslim leaders from Hazrat Nizamuddin Saturday. At the meeting, the clerics voiced concerns about the treatment of minority communities in Bangladesh and called for strict measures against infiltrators in the city, according to a statement from the L-G’s office.
On Wednesday morning, Delhi Police personnel visited slums in the above-mentioned areas, asking people to show their Aadhaar and voter ID cards, residents told ThePrint. Most of the people living in these slums are Muslims.
“We are checking and verifying documents,” a police officer part of the drive told ThePrint.
“Some of those who couldn’t produce their documents and whose answers were found to be suspicious were brought to the local police station. We are conducting the exercise in settlements and areas where illegal immigrants are suspected to be residing. Those found to be living in Delhi illegally will be deported,” he added, also asserting that such drives are conducted “routinely” in the national capital.
Another senior Delhi Police officer also said the drive was a routine exercise.
A 35-year-old resident of a slum in Shaheen Bagh, not wanting to be named, told ThePrint he was a Rohingya refugee and had moved to India from Myanmar in 2012.
“They (police) visited the slum yesterday like they have done before as well. They asked for our Aadhaar cards and other IDs. All we had was a long-term visa that we were given in 2018. Now, we just have a card given to us by the UNHCR,” he explained.
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) office in India issues refugee cards to asylum seekers after a thorough refugee status determination interview. Immigrants with access to these cards are considered refugees, while those who do not have refugee cards or basic documents like Aadhaar, are considered illegal immigrants.
The refugee quoted earlier said he had over the years witnessed several raids and drives, in which the police even tried to “demolish” slums with bulldozers. “Sometimes, if there’s violence anywhere, they just come to us and hold us responsible,” he claimed.
According to him, immigrants from Bangladesh living in the slum were mostly daily-wage workers and all that the slum dwellers wanted was to be able to provide for their families. “We go to work during the day. At night, we eat with our wives and children and go to sleep. That is our life.”
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‘Came to India to save my life’
The refugee from Myanmar said he came to India “to save my life”.
“When I sleep at night, I see people beating me and burning me in my dreams. I have seen it happening around me,” he said.
The last slum where he lived with 55 other Rohingya refugees was completely destroyed in a fire in 2021. He lost all his belongings, including clothes, utensils and mattresses, in the blaze.
Later, the residents of this slum were shifted to a nearby empty plot of land and they started over with basic necessities handed over to them by charity groups, he told ThePrint.
“Sometimes I just ask myself, when will my life start again?” he said, adding that while moving to India, he had thought that he was leaving all his trauma behind and headed to safety.
Now, the male members of the slum stay up at night to guard their homes from sudden raids. “There were 55 families living here. Now only 35 are left,” he said.
The refugee explained that at the time, when many from his community were moving to different countries, his elders had told him that India was a place where people of different religions lived together in harmony. Moreover, he had grown up seeing Bollywood movies, which intrigued him and led him to start over in India, he said.
“Our elders used to say that different people from different religions live together in India. That’s humanity. In India. Hazrat Nizamuddin and Deoband (seminary) are revered and talked about in mosques and madrasas,” he said, adding that after moving to India, the Hazrat Nizamuddin dargah in Delhi was the first place he headed to.
The refugee said that over the years, many like him had got a safe space to live in in India, and if the government asked them to leave, they would move out peacefully.
“But some people here call us terrorists. We just want to live here peacefully,” he told ThePrint.
‘Targeted for our identity’
At another slum in Kalindi Kunj, a group of 55 people who identified themselves as Assamese live in shanties and earn their livelihood rag-picking. During the door-to-door drives, this group was also questioned and their Aadhaar cards were sought for identification.
Many in the community alleged that while the Delhi Police are not able to “kick out” Bangladeshis, Assamese Muslims are being “targeted” for their religious identity as well as physical appearance.
“The police were joined by some media persons during the raids. They kept calling us ghuspetiya (intruder) Bangladeshis. We showed them our papers as well. They clicked photos of our Aadhaar cards,” a resident of the slum told ThePrint.
During the drive, the police also took photographs of Aadhaar cards and noted down Aadhaar numbers, he added.
Last year, the resident said he was picking up rags in Lajpat Nagar when the police asked him for his Aadhaar card. He said he had forgotten the card at home and was immediately taken to a local police station and detained for being a “Bangladeshi illegal immigrant”.
A woman living in one of the neighbouring shanties, sitting among a group of people, told ThePrint that the sudden restrictions and raids were a result of the ongoing violence in Bangladesh. “We are from India and they can’t kick us out. But they might just ask us to leave this place and go back to Assam.”
(Edited by Nida Fatima Siddiqui)
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Ms. Bakhsh has always been a Modi baiter. Her hatred for RSS and BJP has always been all too obvious. At the same time, she has nothing to say about the Islamic fundamentalism which has created deep societal divisions across the world.
For every single issue in India, she quite cleverly places the blame at the doors of the Hindus. All the while cunningly avoiding discussing the fanatic acts and deeds of Islamists such as the attack on Salman Rushdie. Or even the ban on Satanic Verses.
Misinformation campaign masquerading as journalism. A new low for The Print.