Using the Immigrants (Expulsion from Assam) Act, 1950, the government in the Sonitpur district of Assam has ordered five declared foreigners to leave the state within 24 hours.
Since the Assam cabinet authorized the Act's implementation earlier this year, this is the first known instance of its application.
The five individuals, four of whom are women and one of whom is a guy, are said to come from two households and live in the Sonitpur district's Dhobokata hamlet.
In separate cases submitted by the Tezpur superintendent of police (border) in 2006, the Sonitpur Foreigners Tribunal pronounced the five individuals to be foreign citizens on October 24.
The DC believes that their "presence in Assam/India is detrimental to the interest of the general public and also for the internal security of the state" because they are "Declared Foreigners."
The letters also instructed the authorities to remove the five individuals from all government programs, terminate their ration cards, freeze or cancel their Aadhaar cards, and remove their names from the voting records.
In order to handle an urgent issue in Assam during the early years of independence, the Parliament passed the Act. East Bengal, which subsequently became East Pakistan and eventually Bangladesh, sent a large number of immigrants to Assam following the Partition in 1947.
The open border, dislocation, and intercommunal violence were the main causes of the movement. On March 1st, 1950, the Act was passed.
It granted the Center the authority to expel any individual or organization from Assam if their presence compromised the rights of Scheduled Tribes or the national good.
Additionally, the law permitted the government to grant local officials, including district commissioners, the authority to issue expulsion orders immediately, bypassing the legal system.
In October 2024, the Indian Supreme Court affirmed the validity of the 1950 Act by upholding Section 6A of the Citizenship Act.
