The Jharkhand High Court issued a directive to the Hemant Soren government to identify illegal immigrants from Bangladesh residing in the Santhal Parganas region of the State.

A Division Bench of acting Chief Justice Sujit Narayan Prasad and Justice Arun Kumar Rai directed the government while hearing a public interest litigation (PIL) filed by activist Daniel Danish on illegal immigration.

The court ordered the state government to identify the real residents of the area. The Bench described illegal immigration as a dangerous proposition and a matter of significant concern for both the state and the Central governments. The Court ordered that documents which are required for creating identity like ration card, Aadhar cards, Voter ID cards etc should only be done after verifying the land documents and domicile status of the applicant.

During the hearing, the petitioner informed the court that the percentage of the tribal population from 1951 to 2012 has reduced from 44.67 percentage to 28.11 percentage whereas the population of the minority community has increased from 9.44 percentage to 22.73 percentage. The Court will hear this matter again on August 22.