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Influx spawns subversion, demographic change

The Centre has expressed serious concern over the rapid change in demography in the border areas of some eastern and north eastern states due to large scale infiltration from across the border.

The Centre, in a recent report, has pointed out that unabated influx from Bangladesh had not only changed the demographic pattern alarmingly but also led to serious security threat both in terms of insurgency and subversive activities carried out by some pan-Islamic groups backed by Pakistan and international terrorists like Osama Bin Laden.

Sources said these fundamentalist groups had already set up their regional headquarters in Kathmandu and were using some cities like Delhi, Calcutta, Madras, Bombay, Siliguri, Dhaka and Chittagong as safe transit points.

They said these groups had been recruiting youths from both India and Bangladesh, giving them training and using them for carrying out subversive activities in the two countries.

The sources said a plan to blow up the United States consulates in Calcutta and Madras was unearthed with the arrest of at least four people from Calcutta, Siliguri and Delhi recently.

The Centre has also alerted the state governments following the recent recovery of timer devices in Madras. It is suspected that these explosives were supplied from either Bangladesh or Nepal through West Bengal.

Following the Centre's report on unabated infiltration and threat to the country's security, the election commission has directed the electoral officers of the eastern and north eastern states to take effective measures so that the infiltrators don't get themselves enrolled in the voters' lists.

''While the population is increasing by two per cent annually on an average in other parts of the country, the rate is as high as 20 per cent in some border areas of Assam, Tripura and West Bengal,'' the sources said.

The unabated influx from across the border has not only changed the demographic pattern in the border areas but also forced the bonafide citizens to move further interior.

A spokesman of the West Bengal state government said the authorities had already identified Siliguri, the two Dinajpur districts, Murshidabad, Nadia and South 24 Parganas as the main centres of clandestine activities of the ISI and ISI-sponsored fundamentalist groups.

The state's chief electoral officer Jawhar Sircar said he had directed election officials not to accept ration cards as the only proof of citizenship, particularly in the border areas.

''The number of people who want to be included in the voters' lists has shot up by seven per cent in one year as against four per cent over two years during the last revision of the rolls in 1997,'' he said.

''Such an abnormal rise defies all logic even after taking into account the natural course of demographic changes,'' he observed.

UNI

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