Mumbai: In January this year, Kirit Somaiya, a Bharatiya Janata Party leader from Mumbai, travelled over 300 kilometres north to visit Malegaon and address a decade–old local land dispute among the region’s political leaders.
After his visit to this Muslim-majority satellite town in Nashik district, Somaiya suddenly announced that over a thousand “Rohingyas and Bangladeshis were illegally residing in Malegaon” and had procured illegal Indian documents, living without any fear. This claim grew to “four thousand illegal immigrants” in just a few days.
Somaiya’s allegations were not backed by any evidence, but was rather a common communally charged trope that many right-wing activists and political leaders have been indulging in over the past decade. Somaiya’s statement was enough for the BJP-led Mahayuti government to promptly set up a Special Investigation Team (SIT).
In less than a week, Maharashtra chief minister Devendra Fadnavis announced an SIT, headed by the special inspector general of Nashik region. A special office was soon set up in Malegaon.
SIT summons mostly locals, 19 arrested
Since then, the SIT has summoned hundreds of individuals who have applied for or obtained their certificates in the past year.
Based on the SIT’s scrutiny so far, it is confirmed that these individuals are not illegal Rohingya or Bangladeshi immigrants. In most cases, they are not even migrants from other states, but locals who have lived in Malegaon for generations and only lacked citizenry proofs.
This story was originally published in thewire.in. Read the full story here.