Bangladesh minorities can stay without documents in India

Anyone caught illegally entering India will have to be kept in a detention camp. For this reason, the central government has directed states to set up detention centres, commonly referred as detention camps.

The Union Ministry of Home Affairs has issued this directive.

In the last budget session of Parliament, the Immigration and Foreigners (Amendment) Act was passed. The law came into effect on 1 September.

It states that anyone entering without proper documents, or overstaying after a visa has expired, must be kept in a detention centre until they are deported to their own country, reports news agency PTI.

Along with this, the central government has taken another decision. The home ministry’s directive states that Hindus, Christians, Sikhs, Jains, Buddhists, and Parsis from Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Afghanistan who entered India by 31 December 2024, due to religious persecution, will be allowed to live in India even without valid documents.

They will be granted refugee status. They will neither be detained nor deported.

The Home Ministry’s notification particularly means that non-Muslims from Bangladesh who have moved to West Bengal, Assam, Tripura, or Meghalaya will be allowed to stay even without valid documents or papers.

Later, they will not face difficulties in obtaining citizenship. According to central government data, the number of refugees coming to India from Afghanistan and Pakistan is very few, while the largest number of refugees is Bangladeshi citizens.

This directive can be considered an amendment to the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA). The CAA provided for granting Indian citizenship to non-Muslim citizens of those three neighbouring countries, with the cut-off date for their entry into India set as 31 December 2014.

With the new directive, the cutoff date has been extended by 10 years. Now, non-Muslims from these three countries who enter India up to 31 December 2024 will be able to stay without valid documents.

The Home Ministry directive also says that from now on, foreigners applying for Indian visas, or those registering for Overseas Citizen of India (OCI) cards, must provide biometric information.

The justification for keeping illegal entrants in detention centre is that it will make it easier to monitor their movements.