Bengaluru: “There are 283 illegal Bangladeshi immigrants in the state and process is on to deport them”, Minister for Home Dr G Parameshwara disclosed on Tuesday.
Replying to a query from Sunil Kumar of BJP, Minister Parameshwara said there were 748 Bangladeshis in the state out of which 283 were illegally residing here as per Foreigners Act, 1946.

To detect illegal immigrants, a special task force had been constituted at the district and city levels, and the local police asked to maintain a vigil and find out about such migrants in their respective jurisdictions, he said.

The illegal immigrants in state include 16 in Mandya, one in Dakshina Kannada, three in KGF, 11 in Ramanagara, 13 in Mysuru district, one in Chikkamagaluru, 14 in Bengaluru district, 25 in Mysuru urban, 197 in Bengaluru urban and two in Shivamogga, he explained.

Disagreeing with these numbers, Kumar said it looked as if the government was trying to protect the illegal immigrants.

Asking government to consider this issue a matter of internal security as most of them were involved in “anti-social activities”, he urged that action should be taken against them.

The home minister said there were about 25 cases under which these Bangladeshi nationals had been punished for their involvement in various kinds of offence.

He added 52 of them had been deported and also there were some cases pending in courts and under investigation.

Parameshwara said the government was also checking coffee plantations in Chikkamagaluru and Kodagu districts where the reports suggest that a large number of illegal Bangladeshi immigrants had been employed as contract labourers.

Intervening, Opposition BJP Leader Jagadish Shettar questioned as to why those identified as illegal migrants were not being deported and countered that there were thousands of them in the state.

BJP MLA K G Bopaiah said there should be atleast one lakh of them in Kodagu district alone and they were even taking benefits of government schemes, while Kumar alleged that ration cards and voting cards had been issued to them.

The minister said the state government considered illegal Bangladeshi immigrants issue as a matter of internal security and is not taking it lightly.