Tripura Governor Tathagata Roy: 'Muslims entering India are not refugees'

Tripura Governor Tathagata Roy has said that people who flee their countries due to genuine fear of torment are refugees while those entering another country in search of employment or economic opportunities are infiltrators. 

Over 40 lakhs of the 3.29 crore applicants have been suspended from Assam's draft NRC released on Monday (30 July), raising concerns on their future.

If there is an inquiry for creating a National Register of Citizens,some people are bound to be excluded! But I feel that the UNHCR definition of the word ‘refugee’,rather than any religious distinction must be the basis of distinguishing between refugees and infiltrators

— Tathagata Roy (@tathagata2) July 31, 2018

In his tweets on the National Register of Citizens (NRC) draft in Assam, Roy on Tuesday (31 July) stated that, only those who flee their home countries because of the fear of persecution on ethnicity, religion and political belief are refugees, while people who are entering another country in search of job opportunities are not refugees, they are infiltrators.

Tathagata Roy, also said that those lamenting about the separation of people from the Assam NRC were directed to understand the meaning of the word ''refugee'' given by United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).

Tathagata, the former president of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in West Bengal, also said, "Any aged person crossing from his country to another is not a refugee. As per UNHCR definition, which, for some reason, is still not formally accepted by the Indian government, Christians, Hindus, Sikhs, and Buddhists who are fleeing from Bangladesh and Pakistan are refugees."