Madani rushes in to shield ‘genuine’ minorities

‘‘Madani has no business here. He has no right to play the messiah of the Assamese people or even the Muslims of the state. He is an outsider and his intentions are clear. He wants to spread communal and ethnic tension in Assam,’’ he said.

Meanwhile, Madani said once the IMDT Act goes, ‘‘genuine Indian Muslims’’ in Assam will become vulnerable to police persecution in the name of detection and deportation of Bangladeshi migrants. The AASU advisor, on the other hand, said no Bangladeshi infiltrator can escape detection and deportation just because he had reported himself as Assamese-speaking in the census. ‘‘Whatever language he speaks, an infiltrator is an infiltrator,’’ the AASU leader said.

He also dismissed Madani’s claims that Bangladeshi infiltrators had registered himself as an Assamese-speaking person during census. ‘‘Even if any Bangladeshi did so, he should be identified and tried for filing a wrong statement,’’ Bhattacharyya said.

Meanwhile, the Assam Pradesh Congress Committee continued its tirade against the Centre for the move to repeal the IMDT Act. ‘‘The Act is necessary to protect genuine Indian Muslims from harassment in the name of detecting and deporting Bangladeshis,’’ said APCC spokesman and vice-president Silvius Condpan.

He however skirted questions on whether detection of Bangladeshis should get priority over safeguarding ‘‘genuine’’ Indian Muslims.

Meanwhile, Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi said his government would continue to oppose the move to repeal the IMDT Act. Though he admitted there has been infiltration from Bangladesh, Gogoi failed to come out with official figures. Official statistics say altogether 3,01,671 infiltrators from East Pakistan and Bangladesh were expelled from Assam between 1962 and 1984, when the IMDT Act was not in existence. These include 1,74, 349 persons in 1962- 1966, while the number was 69,174 in 1967-1973. Another 58,148 persons were deported in 1974 -1984. The IMDT Act came into effect from 1985.