Jharkhand High Court Directs State to Identify Bangladeshi Immigrants in Santhal Region

The High Court instructs the government to use a special branch for identifying illegal immigrants; orders issued on a PIL filed by Daniel Danish.

The Jharkhand High Court has directed the state government to identify Bangladeshi immigrants in the Santhal region.

RANCHI – The Jharkhand High Court, in a significant directive, has ordered the state government to identify Bangladeshi-origin immigrants in the Santhal area.

The court has asked the government to utilize a special branch for this purpose.

This directive was issued by the bench of Acting Chief Justice Arun Kumar Rai on August 8 while hearing a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) filed by Daniel Danish.

The detailed order from the court is available on the Jharkhand High Court’s website.

The court instructed the district administration to thoroughly verify documents such as ration cards, Aadhaar cards, and voter ID cards before issuing them, especially by matching them with land records and other relevant documents in the six districts of the Santhal region.

The High Court has also made the Director Generals of the Border Security Force (BSF), the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI), the Election Commission of India, the Intelligence Bureau (IB), and the National Investigation Agency (NIA) respondents in the PIL.

The petitioner’s lawyer informed the court that between 1951 and 2011, the population of Scheduled Tribes in the Santhal region decreased from 44.67% to 28.11%, while the Muslim population increased from 9.44% to 22.73% due to the influx of illegal immigrants.

The next hearing of the case is scheduled for August 22.