This clause attracts much criticism for the seeming unlimited powers that it bestows on the police; there are complaints that these powers are abused. There are clauses in the IMDT and the Foreigners Act which overlap. But there is one crucial difference: under the Foreigners Act, the accused is presumed guilty until proven otherwise. This is an internationally established practice—the ‘foreigner’ must prove that he or she is a national of the country entered or in which he or she is residing. Under the IMDT, the burden, of proof is on the accuser. This is the exact opposite of what is acceptable internationally, the opposite of good law. For reasons not very difficult to fathom, the Congress party firmly supports this flawed concept.

The going is tough too for foreigners’ tribunals. A study of the records between 1983 and 1997 showed that only 15,921 out of 46,882 cases against alleged foreigners in Dhubri were found to have merit by the Superintendent of Police. Of these, by the time the cases came to trial, 7,940 had died; another 2,838 had ‘shifted’ their homes and not less than 5,143 were declared ‘untraced’. The last category defies reason: it means that these individuals were never located. Either they had never existed or they just vanished, moving on to other places as in the second category where the pressure was less.

Only 2,314 cases went before the foreigners’ tribunal; of these, 2,260 were completed and only 908 were declared as foreigners. Those who were not found to be foreigners were far more in number: 2,233.

As far as the IMDT is concerned, the Congress and other parties are opposed to its possible abrogation, saying that this will harm the interests of minority groups. They have failed to understand the basic point. It should not matter whether the IMDT is repealed or not. Because of its inability to enforce either a substantial number of convictions or deportations, the IMDT is as good as dead!

At times, the functioning of the system borders on the farcical. In one case, the police went searching for a suspected foreigner to serve a notice on him. Having failed to locate him, the exasperated police party finally stuck the notice on a tree and told the court that the summons had been served.1

In the first four months of 1997, for example, a total of just four cases were initiated under the IMDT at Dhubri. All of these were launched in April; not even one case was filed in between January and March that year. There are more ways of getting rid of the unwanted foreigner. To this day, there exists an archaic system called the Quit India notices, a procedure put in place by the British, as the term suggests. These are issued by local police to suspected foreigners after the IMDT courts have deemed them to be so.