Amid simmering controversy over the NRC base year, Chief ministerTarun Gogoi on Saturday said that the government is committed to detect and deport the Bangladeshi immigrants who came to Assam after 1971.

In his address at the Independence Day parade ground in Khanapara, Gogoi said that the immigrants must quit the country. But in the same breath, he said, the government would not allow any genuine Indian citizen to be harassed.

His announcement assumed significance a week after a police team was beaten up by a group of local Congress men in Morigaon when they were trying to arrest a family of Bangladesi immigrants acting on a high court order.