'Muslim Population Growing Due To Infiltration': Amit Shah

Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Friday claimed that some political parties were treating infiltrators as a vote bank and questioned why infiltration does not take place along the Gujarat and Rajasthan borders.

Shah said this while delivering a lecture in memory of Dainik Jagran's former editor-in-chief Narendra Mohan on the topic "Infiltration (ghuspaith), demographic change and democracy".

He said infiltration was not a political issue but a national issue, which is a threat to democracy.

The opposition says it is the responsibility of the Centre to stop infiltration as the Border Security Force (BSF) is under its control, but there are certain areas on the border which cannot be fenced due to topography, he said.

"Centre alone cannot stop infiltration. State governments protect such infiltrators as some parties see a vote bank in them," he said.

The minister asked if a person illegally enters the country and the district administration fails to identify them, then how can infiltration be stopped? He said that when a person does not understand the difference between a refugee and an infiltrator, they are deceiving their own soul.

Shah said in Assam, the decadal growth rate of the Muslim population in the 2011 census was 29.6 per cent.

"This is not possible without infiltration. In many districts of West Bengal, this growth rate is 40 per cent, and in several border areas, it has reached up to 70 per cent. This is clear evidence that infiltration has occurred in the past," Shah said.

The minister said some parties have started seeing a vote bank in infiltration, so they have given shelter to the infiltrators.

"Our Gujarat also has a border; Rajasthan has one too, but infiltration does not happen there," he said.

Shah said there has been a very significant decline in the population of tribal communities in Jharkhand, and the reason is infiltration from Bangladesh.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)