India has agreed to assist the UK in deporting illegal Indian immigrants while London has agreed to work to stop Kashmiri and Sikh radicals active on British soil. Junior home minister Kiren Rijiju said in London on Friday that he had "initialled" two MoUs with his UK counterparts that would be signed when PM Modi visits London in April for the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting.
While the first MoU dealt with illegal Indian immigrants, the other related to sharing criminal records. Indian deputy high commissioner Dinesh Patnaik explained there were "some few thousand" illegal Indian immigrants in the UK. "A few illegal migrants create a situation where legal migration becomes a political issue.
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The idea is to allow illegal migrants to go back so that legal migration becomes easier," he said. "When they find somebody we will help identify them and then we will help them to go back to India," Patnaik said.
"Khalistan is no more an issue in India but some fringe groups in the UK keep creating problems. The UK government has assured us they would take care of such issues... and ensure anti-India activities, also by Kashmiri separatists, are not allowed in the UK," said Rijiju, who is here on the invitation of Brandon Lewis, former immigration minister and now chairman of the Conservative Party.
Rijiju also said the UK was keen to learn from India how to counter radicalisation among Muslims. He pointed out that India had the world's second-largest Muslim population but radicalisation was negligible because of an "effective counter-radicalisation process".
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Commerce and industry minister Suresh Prabhu is also in the UK for meetings with his UK counterparts and industrialists to discuss a wide range of bilateral issues, from increasing trade to encouraging British SMEs' entry into India.
A joint event in India was being planned to bring together startups in India with UK innovation companies to find ways to work together. "They need not be physically present ¡ª they can do business with each other through the virtual world," he said.