Hindu body chief Praveen Togadia demands DNA tests to identify illegal immigrants in Assam

Antarrashtriya Hindu Parishad (AHP) president Praveen Togadia on February 3, demanded that DNA tests be conducted to identify illegal Bangladeshi immigrants in Assam, proposing the 1951 voters’ list as the base document for tracing ancestry.
Addressing a press conference, Togadia asserted that the detection of illegal immigrants was possible if there was sufficient political will, irrespective of which party was in power.
“We demand that DNA tests be conducted to determine citizenship eligibility. The 1951 voters’ list is available. Let ancestry be traced based on it, and DNA samples matched,” he said.
Togadia claimed that DNA testing could be completed within two to three hours and added that there was no shortage of testing infrastructure, including portable machines, to carry out such an exercise.
The term ‘Miya’, which Togadia used during his remarks, is traditionally a pejorative reference to Bengali-speaking Muslims in Assam, who are often identified by non-Bengali-speaking communities as illegal immigrants from Bangladesh. In recent years, however, sections of the community have reclaimed the term as an assertion of identity.
The demand comes amid continuing debates in Assam over citizenship, migration, and the identification of undocumented immigrants.