West Bengal Governor CV Ananda Bose on Monday evening visited Hakimpur town in North 24 Parganas as hundreds of illegal immigrants from Bangladesh flocked to the border town to cross over to the neighbouring country in the wake of the Election Commission conducting Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in the state.
“I wanted to come and verify the situation myself. There is a concern about the spread of misinformation, misleading people in the name of SIR. Strong action will be taken against those trying to mislead… SIR is an essential process to hold free and fair elections… Of course, there can be complaints about how it’s done. There are shortcomings. Maybe there are flaws. These certainly need to be addressed, but misleading people and creating divisions in society are not tolerable…This ‘gundagiri’ cannot continue at all. Bengal has to be made violence-free, corruption-free, and we should have a Viksit Bengal,” the Governor told mediapersons at Hakimpur.
Stating that “no illegal migrants will be tolerated” in the country, the Governor said, “We have our own rules and regulations. We have the border security force to check it. We will certainly see that Indians live in India, as well as those who are allowed to be here.”
The Governor, who met senior BSF officials at the border town and also interacted with residents of Hakimpur, said: “The BSF is strong enough to guard our borders against this. I will certainly submit my reports to the competent authorities, the contents of which I do not want to discuss now.”
According to Raj Bhavan officials, the Governor is on a two-day visit to the border areas in the state. After visiting Kakimpur, he will spend the night in Krishnanagar in Nadia district. On Tuesday, he will visit the border areas in Murshidabad district before sending a report to the Union Home Ministry.
Since the month-long SIR exercise started in West Bengal on November 4, thousands of Bangladesh nationals who have been illegally residing in West Bengal have crossed over to Bangladesh through the Hakimpur border checkpost alone.
Earlier, The Indian Express had reported how the people flocking to the Hakimpur border outpost were “scared” of the SIR exercise, linking it to the NRC (National Register of Citizens), which is currently going on in neighbouring Assam.