The Twipra Students' Federation (TSF) Monday organised a sit-in-strike at Circuit House in Agartala with an appeal to the Centre and the Tripura government to evict all illegal migrants from the Northeast, and take immediate action against them. The strike, as part of a larger protest across the region by North East Students' Organisation (NESO), started from 11 am and continued for three hours with the participation of many leaders of TSF. "We want to give a message to the government about the illegal migrants. They can have no other identity; illegal migrants are illegal immigrants. They don't have any caste or religion. Our demand is that all illegal immigrants should be deported from Tripura, the Northeast and India,” said a leader of TSF, which is a member of NESO. The TSF leader said that they would continue their movement if their demands were not met. "We shall negotiate our demands through movement. If the government summons us, our leaders will go and negotiate with the government. We want to give a message that the government should be aware of the illegal migrants and take steps regarding it,” said the leader. He added that the Assam Government has started identifying illegal migrants, and appealed to authorities in Tripura to do the same and push them back to their country. In July, the Tripura Government formed special task forces in the West Tripura district for the detection and deportation of illegal immigrants living in the state. The task force is headed by a senior police officer of the district, and officers-in-charge of different police stations of the concerned district are its members. Tripura Chief Minister Manik Saha, who also holds the Home portfolio, said in July that the special task forces were formed to investigate any infiltration since 2014 or if there are any recent cases of such illegal immigration. The state government’s move came after ruling alliance partner TIPRA Motha supremo Pradyot Kishore Manikya Debbarma demanded strict action against illegal immigrants. The TIPRA Motha party has been protesting for the last two months, demanding that the illegal immigrants from Bangladesh and Myanmar be pushed back to their land. On July 13, Pradyot Kishore urged the Election Commission of India to follow the Bihar model of revision of electoral polls in the Northeast, especially Tripura. He alleged that in many areas, people were given Aadhaar cards illegally, taking advantage of corruption among government officials.
