Agartala: With 28 more Bangladesh nationals, including a tout, and two Rohingyas being arrested by security personnel, the influx of illegal entrants from the neighbouring trouble-torn country into Tripura continues unabated, officials said on Sunday.
Officials said that the Government Railway Police (GRP) personnel arrested the Bangladeshi nationals at the Agartala railway station on Saturday night as they were trying to board a train to travel to other Indian states via Guwahati.
The Bangladeshis, aged between 19 years to 40 years and residents of Bangladesh’s Chapainawabganj district in Rajshahi Division, told the security personnel that they came to India in search of jobs. One of Bangladesh’s eight divisions, Rajshahi Division, located in the north-western part of Bangladesh, has no border with Tripura but in the recent past, many nationals of the region entered Tripura, a senior official said.
Tripura shares an 856 km border with Bangladesh’s Chittagong and Sylhet divisions.
Meanwhile, Border Security Force (BSF) personnel, accompanied by Tripura Police, arrested five Bangladeshi nationals including a woman and two Rohingyas from two different places in West Tripura and North Tripura districts.
A BSF spokesman said that the paramilitary forces are cracking down heavily on the illegal migration by Bangladeshi nationals and have stepped up the vigil in close coordination with sister agencies in the border area.
Following the direction of Tripura Chief Minister Manik Saha, the BSF has stepped up its drive against illegal Bangladeshi immigrants and all field formations are actively breaking down the nexus of touts in the bordering areas.
BSF’s Inspector General, Tripura Frontier, Patel Piyush Purushottam Das said that 95 per cent of the 856 km India-Bangladesh border with Tripura has already been fenced, while fencing work is going on in the remaining 27.5 km.
Over the last two-and-a-half months, more than 150 Bangladeshi nationals and 32 Rohingyas were arrested by the GRP, BSF, and Tripura Police from the Agartala railway station and various other places in Tripura after they illegally entered India. Officials said that all the Bangladeshis and Rohingyas illegally entered Tripura to board trains or buses to go to other states in India “in search of jobs”.
During the past few weeks, Bangladesh witnessed waves of deadly violence and clashes during the quota reform protests claiming the lives of over 170 people and injuring over a thousand.
