Togadia wants DNA tests to identify illegal Bangladeshi immigrants in Assam

Guwahati: AHP president Praveen Togadia on Tuesday demanded DNA tests to identify illegal Bangladeshis in Assam, using the 1951 voters' list as the base for it.

Togadia, the president of the Antarrashtriya Hindu Parishad (AHP), maintained that if the government has the will, irrespective of the party heading it, the illegal immigrants can be detected.

"We demand that DNA tests be conducted to determine citizenship eligibility for 'Miyas'. The 1951 voters' list is available. Let the ancestry be traced on its basis, and DNAs matched," he said, addressing a press conference.

'Miya' is originally a pejorative term used for Bengali-speaking Muslims in Assam, and the non-Bengali-speaking people generally identify them as Bangladeshi immigrants. In recent years, community activists have begun adopting this term as a gesture of defiance.

Togadia claimed that the tests take two to three hours, and there is no dearth of machines, including portable ones, for conducting such an exercise.