Will take back if B'deshi citizens are living illegally in India: Rizvi

Dhaka is ready to take back any "genuine" Bangladeshi citizen staying in India illegally, but New Delhi will have to furnish proof first, Gowher Rizvi, the international affairs advisor to Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, said here on Tuesday.

Rizvi said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi has assured Bangladesh that it shouldn't worry on this issue.

Rizvi's comments came in the backdrop of the BJP-led NDA government's repeated assertions that lakhs of Bangladeshi infiltrators are in India and they would be driven out once a pan India National Register of Citizens (NRC) exercise is undertaken.

"The Indian prime minister has assured us that we needn't worry, and it won't have any effect on us. Nobody from the Indian government has told us if some Bangladeshi citizens are there or not in that list," said Rizvi.

"Our policy is very clear. If any genuine Bangladeshi citizen is staying in India illegally, then of course we will take them back. But it has to be proved first," he said.IANS