The West Bengal government complained, ‘Enquiries held at the addresses of their Indian referees (for visa holders) have revealed that in a majority of cases such addresses are either fictitious or that the Bangladeshi has never visited his referee after coming to India.’ Not only this, but local people neither resisted the ingress of the outsiders nor cooperated with local authorities in detecting them.

While we are on the subject of numbers, let us consider another one which has been brought up by the Election Commission. In 1999, the Election Commission devised a strategy for Assam to pin down voters who could not give adequate proof of their identity and of their origins. It did so in response to the consistent demand by the students union (All Assam Students Union) to crack down on illegal settlers who were finding their way into voting lists, as they had been for decades.

A revision of the electoral rolls turned up not less than 320,000 persons of doubtful origin, who should not, in the view of the Election Commission, be allowed to vote. ‘Most of them are Muslim, most of them are Bengali-speaking and none of them could give a clear explanation of how they came to be where they were,’ said one senior Election Commission official. A check of references they gave for relatives and villages turned out to be false, as the officials in West Bengal too had found with many other cases.

Identifying foreigners is as much a question of legal procedure as anything else: the local police must file cases against these persons for giving false information to public servants, for entering the country illegally and for trying to get on to voters’ lists. In other words, throw the book at them, including the Foreigners Act, and disenfranchise them till 2026, while allowing them to continue their economic activities.

These immigrants must be identified, registered and located in the areas where they are currently working. They should not be harassed but should simply not be allowed to move elsewhere, by making it mandatory for them to report to police stations every month and having the local authorities check on their residences. There is little point in trying to deport them. Bangladesh will not have them; in which case where can they be sent?

These measures may sound harsh and sweeping. But there are few soft options left. However, cases of immigrants and those of their descendants should be reviewed after 2026, when the proposed delimitation of parliamentary constituencies is to take place.