Assam chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma on Wednesday claimed “many textile factory owners” in India were “incentivising” infiltration of cheap labour from a flummoxed Bangladesh.

He also asserted that “no” Hindu Bangladeshi infiltrator has been “detected” in the past five months in Assam even though “we have witnessed a massive increase in infiltration into Assam and India”.

In a New Year media interaction by the chief minister in Guwahati, Sarma said Assam had discussed the spurt in infiltration with its counterparts in the northeastern states and West Bengal.

He said about 20 to 30 infiltrators are being detected by the Assam Police every day and that “an equal number” are also being detected in Tripura.

Both states share a border with Bangladesh.

Sarma said when they tried to “research why this thing (influx) is happening” they found the textile industry in Bangladesh “has virtually collapsed after the unrest in Bangladesh”.

“So the labourers who earlier worked in the textile industry in Bangladesh are coming to India and many textile factory owners within our country also are incentivising them by giving a good amount of money for importing cheap labour illegally. So we have raised this issue in the last (recently-held) NEC meeting. I have also discussed this issue with home minister Amit Shah in my last meeting,” Sarma said.

“This is a very, very alarming issue for us because we never detected so many infiltrators earlier. Once unrest gripped Bangladesh, the economy collapsed. Obviously, the majority community (Muslim) is affected more than the minority community. In the textile industry most of the labourers were from the majority community,” he said.

“So influx has increased into India and mostly these are from the so-called majority community of Bangladesh whom we treat as a minority community in India. So far we have detained and pushed back more thousand infiltrators this year.”

“Assam government is not arresting them because if we arrest them we put them in Indian jail and they will get bail. So we have created another way — to push them back. We have pushed back nearly 1,000 infiltrators after the disruption in Bangladesh,” Sarma said.

Influx is a sensitive issue in Assam which had triggered the Assam movement against illegal foreigners from 1979 to 1985.

The chief minister said the Centre is “also very serious” about the influx issue.

“We have to strike at those industrial houses which are incentivising people to come into India in the form of cheap labour,” Sarma said.

He said Hindu people do not come from Bangladesh because they have “some affinity with the soil of Bangladesh”, they are “patriotic Bangladeshis even after tremendous atrocities (against them) they don’t want to come out of Bangladesh because their forefathers were from there. We should also not encourage them to come to India... Bangladesh Hindu people are also acting very maturely. They are not coming. At least we have not detected any Hindu Bangladeshi in the last five months in Assam,”
Sarma said.

The turmoil in Bangladesh began in July leading to the ouster of the Sheikh Hasina regime in August.