GUWAHATI, April 1: India will completely fence its borders with Bangladesh and deploy more troops to prevent illegal immigrants sneaking into north-eastern states, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said on Saturday. The announcement came 10 days after Bangladesh Prime Minister Khaleda Zia held talks with Mr Singh in New Delhi on a raft of issues, including the problem of illegal immigration.

“We are taking firm action and all other possible measures to check infiltration from across the border,” Singh said after kicking off a provincial electoral rally in Assam, the largest of the seven frontier states.

“We are in the process of strengthening border fencing and increasing security personnel in the border areas to check infiltration,” he said in Guwahati, Assam’s de facto capital.

Bangladesh has rejected accusations that it encourages migration of its citizens to India.

The two countries share a 4,095-kilometre border, more than half of which touches Assam, Tripura, Mizoram, and Meghalaya states — four of the ‘seven sisters’ in the northeast.

Mr Singh told reporters he hoped the fencing project would soon be completed. Some 60 per cent of the India-Bangladesh border in the northeast is porous and unfenced.

The immigration issue has driven a wedge between India’s Bengali-speaking population and local tribal and ethnic inhabitants, with Muslims bearing the brunt of mistrust.

The process of detection of illegal aliens is currently dealt with under a federal law, and Mr Singh said New Delhi would ensure that bona fide residents would not be persecuted.

“I am assuring the people of Assam that no genuine Indian national would face any kind of harassment in the name of detection and deportation of illegal infiltrators,” he said.—AFP