Among the 792 Hindus of 400 families, who have sought help and rehabilitation in Delhi as migrants from Punjab, there are very many fakes.

 THIS revelation has been made by the union territory officials after verification of the antecedents of these persons, This also blows to bits the yarns that all of them had to leave their hearths and homes and flee to safety from the threats to their lives by gunmen. Some of them are locals or Harianvis who have chosen to take undue advantage of the opportunity and the government aid doled out by posing themselves as migrants.

‘About two months ago, the Delhi Administration got suspicious about a good number of these refugees. Because some of them said they had left their children behind and would bring them to Delhi once the quantum of aid was known. To get at the root of the problem, these migrants were asked to fill in/a questionaire, giving details about their previous address, occupation and members of the family.

 When the Delhi authorities asked the deputy commissioners of  Gurdaspur, and Kapurthala districts to help verify the facts, there was, strangely, poor Response, though it was in the interests of Punjab that the truth be established and the antics of some fake refugees be exposed. These Punjab D.C.s dished out the alibi that the process was “time consuming” and they could not spare time and effort for it. This means they wanted false figures about migration from their own area to remain unrefuted.

  Cornered, Delhi Administration sent its own officer to Amritsar district, from where majority of migrants came He found that a number of addresses given by the migrants did not exist. In some cases while the addresses were correct, there was no trace of the Persons ever having lived there. In a number of cases, the date of Leaving the village or the town was wrong. Some had given wrong details about the number of their family members and previous occupation.

When the results of the verification became known, some of the “migrants” just slipped out of the refugee camps because their game of deception was up.

The verification of these “refugees” from other districts of Punjab is yet to be made. Only then it would be known how many are genuine and how many fake.

Article extracted from this publication >> December 26, 1986