BJP fact-finding committee claims Kogilu families may include illegal migrants

The BJP fact-finding committee, headed by MLA for Yelahanka S.R. Vishwanath, on the Kogilu demolition issue, expressed suspicion that many families living in Fakeer Colony and Waseem Layout were from Bangladesh, but did not provide any conclusive documents to support its claim.

Meanwhile, a BJP delegation that met Governor Thaawarchand Gehlot on Monday petitioned him to ensure that alternative houses should not be allotted to “encroachers” who lost their homes in Kogilu.

The committee report said that though the evicted families claim to have lived in the area for over 15 years, they failed to answer the committee’s questions properly. The families also did not produce proper family trees, the report noted.

As a supporting document for its claim that the families had been living there for only two to three years, the committee attached satellite images showing changes on the land from 2018 onwards.

The basis of the argument is that there is a mismatch between the address on the Aadhaar cards of these families and their voter IDs. “Some of them have their addresses in and around KGF, Tin Factory and Kogilu but appear suspicious. The families have arrived from neighbouring districts and some from Bangladesh and have settled here,” the report said. “These families have also obtained ration cards using fake documents. There is a mismatch in all documents,” the report said.

However, there is no report or verification document to show that the Aadhaar cards are duplicates. The committee said it has sent the Aadhaar details of all the families to the Unique Identification Authority of India to verify their authenticity.

The report argued that the government has no legal provision to allot houses to the affected families under the Rajiv Gandhi Housing Scheme. The committee warned that doing so would have future implications. “Those who have encroached on government land will also seek rehabilitation like this when they are asked to vacate, using this incident as a precedent,” the report said.