Thousands of Bangladeshis have fled India’s northeastern state of Assam following threats by anonymous groups against migrants and a campaign asking locals not to employ foreigners, officials and residents said. The unidentified groups in the troubled state’s Dibrugarh district have circulated leaflets and sent text messages on mobile phones in the past week, warning Bangladeshi nationals to leave immediately or face unspecified action. Mobile phones in Assam are being flooded with text messages saying, “Save the nation, save identity. Let’s take an oath ... no food, no job, no shelter to Bangladeshis” while leaflets seeking an “economic blockade” of the migrants are also being distributed.

“Many labourers working in brick kilns, rickshaws pullers and construction workers have fled in the past one week due to the threat,” said PC Saloi, superintendent of police in Dibrugarh. Over the years, hundreds of thousands of illegal Bangladeshi migrants have swamped the tea-growing and oil-rich state in search for work and food.

In the early 1980s, the powerful All Assam Students Union launched a bloody campaign to push Bangladeshis back to their homeland. Thousands of Bangladeshis, including women and children, were massacred across the state by indigenous people who feared they would be reduced to a minority in their own land. The government and the students union signed a pact in 1985, but clauses on the deportation of foreigners have still not been implemented. The campaign against the Bangladeshis has mushroomed into a full-fledged uprising against New Delhi’s rule and many rebel groups are still battling for independence.

India has fenced parts of the 4,000-km (2,500-mile) border with Bangladesh, but officials say this has done little to deter migrants bent on leaving one of the world’s poorest countries. Assam shares a 272 km (169 mile) porous border with Bangladesh, a vast stretch of which is unfenced. “Fencing along the border with Bangladesh in this sector has started to prevent illegal infiltration,” said federal Home Secretary VK Duggal.

“Legal and judicial measures have also been adopted to deport illegal Bangladeshi settlers from the country.” Though there are no officials figures of actual numbers of Bangladeshis in Assam, locals say their population could be six million of the state’s 26 million people. “Every day around 6,000 illegal infiltrators cross the border and enter the state,” said an intelligence official in Guwahati, the state’s main city. Police said most of the fleeing Bangladeshi have now moved to districts close to the border with Bangladesh.

<B>Biswajyoti DAS</B>