As many as eight illegal Bangladeshi immigrants were nabbed by the Railway Protection Force (RPF) and the police at Rajamahendravaram and Vijayawada railway stations in Andhra Pradesh on Friday. As per The Hindu, the eight who were travelling in batches of four had entered the country through drainage pipes on the Indo-Bangladesh border, revealed the investigation officer.
An investigation has been launched to ascertain facts about the drainage pipes along the international border as claimed by the arrested immigrants. Chances of gaining entry into India through some underground passages are also being explored.
The accused Mohammed Haasan (33), his brothers Hydar Ali Khan (37), Imdadil Khan (21) and another relative Syudullah Sheikh (25) were arrested while travelling in Howrah-Goa Vasco Da Gama express without passports. They confessed to having sneaked into the country illegally, informed a senior police official.
While the other batch of Shaik Saddam (25), Mohammed Ali Ameen (19), Mohammed Sakayath Hussain (37) and Khayyum Khan (25) arrested by sub-inspector L Viswanadh of RPF were heading to Chennai for work.
Information received through intelligence
The police had received information from the intelligence officials that some Bangladeshi nationals had gained illegal entry into India and were travelling in the Howrah-Chennai Mail and Howrah-Vascodagama Amaravati Express trains.
The Bangladeshi nationals confessed to crossing the borders after the restrictions imposed during the first wave of COVID-19 pandemic were relaxed.
After gaining entry into the country, they reportedly settled in different parts of West Bengal, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and other States, and have been working as daily wagers at construction sites since then.
As per reports, the mobile phones used by these Bangladeshis were not Android devices. The seized mobile phones have been sent to the Forensic Science Laboratory (FSL) to trace the contacts of the illegal immigrants.
Additionally, the Vijayawada and Rajamahendravaram police have informed that the Ministry of External Affairs, Bangladesh Embassy and the Indian Embassy in Dhaka have been apprised of the arrests. Arrangements are being made to file petitions in the courts, seeking police custody of the immigrants.
Fake identity cards
In almost all the arrests made, the police said that while the illegal immigrants do not have passports, they do have fake identity cards such as Aadhar cards, PAN cards and voter IDs with fake addresses.
We reported similar cases from Uttar Pradesh where a crackdown led to the arrest of Rohingyas running a nexus in the country.
In June the Uttar Pradesh police arrested four Rohingya illegal immigrants- Hafiz Shamiullah, Azizul Rahman, Mohammad Ismail and Mufizur Rahman for running a sophisticated international human trafficking syndicate from inside the country. The police had said that the accused helped Rohingyas settled in Bangladesh to cross over to India with the help of forged documents such as Voter Id, Aadhar card, passports etc.
In another case, the Uttar Pradesh ATS had arrested two Rohingyas named Noor Alam and Amir Husain living in Ghaziabad with forged papers. ADG Law and Order Prashant Kumar revealed that the Rohingyas have begun to settle in various parts of Uttar Pradesh with forged ration cards, PAN cards and voter ID cards. As per the Aaj Tak report, the illegal migrants are being used as vote banks for which they are receiving financial aid too.
