Admin
05 September 2024
As the hearing on the PIL seeking probe into Bangladeshi intrusion and changing demography of Santhal Pargana in Jharkhand started on Thursday, the Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, who represented the Union government, admitted that the Centre is discussing the matter with security agencies.
Among these agencies the Centre was dealing with to contain Bangladeshi intrusion were the Intelligence Bureau and BSF, SG Mehta told the Jharkhand High Court.
“We(the Union Government) will submit an action taken report. For this we need time”, SG submitted.
Responding to SG Tushar Mehta’s submission, the court fixed September 12 for the next hearing.
Earlier, on August 23, while hearing a PIL seeking probe on Bangladeshi intrusion and changing demography of Santhal Pargana, Jharkhand High Court in a verbal observation, had observed that the tribal population in Jharkhand is decreasing and the central government is silent.
The court had added that Jharkhand was created to protect the interests of the tribals, but it seems that the central government is not showing any interest in stopping the entry of Bangladeshi intruders into Jharkhand.
The court had also observed that the Intelligence Bureau (IB) works 24 hours every week, but is not filing its reply on sensitive issues like Bangladeshi intruders.
BSF also has an important role in stopping Bangladeshi intruders but it seems that the central government does not have a positive attitude in the matter of stopping Bangladeshi intruders, the court said.
Disappointed over the failure of central government to file the affidavit in this regard on August 8, the court had also commented that whether the Union government would act only after the Bangladeshi infiltrators enters the country.
Notably, the SG Tushar Mehta’s online appearance and submission was in response to Jharkhand High Court asking the Central Government to reply through affidavit regarding the measures taken to stop the infiltration of Bangladeshis and their views.
The IB, UIDAI and BSF had earlier been asked to file separate affidavits. The Centre was supposed to file its reply , but it failed to do so, instead, it filed an intervention petition and sought four weeks’ time and on Thursday, the SG Tushar Mehta appeared and made submission, seeking time to file its action taken details.
Rejecting the intervention petition, the court said that when the state government has already filed a reply in the case, then why the central government is facing difficulties in filing the reply.
The court, however, directed the central government to file reply in two weeks. Next hearing will take place on September 5.
The court was also told that the banned outfit in Bangladesh has been trapping the local tribal girls and marrying them under love-jihad and land-jihad in many of the parts of Santhal Paragana, which needs to be checked.
Strangely, the state government had declined to accept Bangladeshi infiltration without making its stand public on decline of the tribal population.
This had prompted the Jharkhand High Court to express dismay at the State authorities' silence in their affidavits over the declining tribal population in the Santhal Pargana region. The remarks were made in the court's order passed while hearing a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) plea highlighting alleged illegal immigration from Bangladesh in the region.
