Seven more Bangladeshi nationals, three Rohingyas detain in Tripura for illegal entry

Seven more Bangladeshi nationals, three Rohingyas and an Indian tout were held in Tripura on Saturday, officials said.

Officials said that seven including six Bangladeshi nationals, who were trying to move to Chennai in search of jobs, were arrested in Udaipur in Gomati district of Southern Tripura, by Government Railway Police (GRP) personnel.

Among the Bangladeshi infiltrators, four were minors and the rest two persons were married couples.

Another one, identified as Mohammad Hafizul, was a resident Nadia district of West Bengal.

The Bangladeshi couple, identified as Rubel Sheikh and Suraiya along with the minors were supposed to travel to Chennai where she (Suraiya) claimed her father stays for livelihood.

“All of them entered India through the South Tripura district. During interrogation, they said that they were from Khulna district of Bangladesh,” a GRP official said.

The illegal intruders were handed over to Radha Kishore Pur police station.

In a separate development, one Bangladeshi national was apprehended by BSF troops of BOP Kamalasagar under the Sepahijala district.

The apprehended Bangladeshi national is a resident of Comilla district of Bangladesh.

In another operation, BSF troops of Panisagar Sector in northern Tripura apprehended three Rohingya migrants, including a woman.

Preliminary questioning of the infiltrators is underway.

Over the last three and a half months, over 470 Bangladeshi nationals and over 63 Rohingyas were arrested by the GRP, Border Security Force (BSF), and Tripura Police from the Agartala railway station and various other places in Tripura after they illegally entered India.

The Rohingyas illegally entered India after fleeing their camps in Bangladesh's Cox's Bazar where more than one million displaced Rohingyas from Myanmar have been living since 2017.

After the Bangladesh unrest began in June-July, BSF enhanced surveillance along the 4,096-km border with the neighbouring country to prevent trans-border crime and infiltration, the BSF officials said.

Five Indian states – West Bengal (2216 km), Tripura (856 km), Meghalaya (443 km), Mizoram (318 km) and Assam ( 263 km) share a border with Bangladesh.