Three children among 11 Bangladeshi nationals held in Tripura

Eleven Bangladeshi nationals including three children and two women were arrested from a border village in Tripura’s mountainous Dhalai district on Sunday.

Police said that the Bangladeshi nationals were arrested on their way back to their homes at Bagerhat District in south-western Bangladesh’s Khulna Division.

Acting on a tip-off from the villagers, a police team arrested the Bangladeshis at border village Machkumir under Gandacherra subdivision of Dhalai district on Saturday evening.

A case under the Indian Passport Act and various sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) was registered against the illegal intruders and a probe was on.

The police identified the arrested people as Mohammad Mamun Sardhar( 29), Ruma Begam(25), Mohammad Rabin Sardhar (35), Mohammad Chan Miah Akhon (35), Mohammad Maharaj Sheikh (25), Rajib Houladar (22), Afsana Akhter( 22) and Mohammad Ferdouz (30).

Police quoting the Bangladeshi nationals said that three years ago they without any passport and valid documents illegally entered into West Bengal and went to Bengaluru in search of jobs and last week they came to Bengal and then to Dhalai district headquarters Ambassa by trains to return to their country.

A court on Sunday sent them to judicial custody till May 18. One of the three children, aged 13, was sent to a child care home and the others, aged five and three, were sent along with their mothers.

The police said that a few of them were arrested at Gandacherra and the rest at Ambassa for intruding into the state through the Indo-Bangladesh border.

Five Indian states – West Bengal (2216 km), Tripura (856 km), Meghalaya (443 km), Mizoram  (318 km) and Assam (263 km) share a 4,096-km border with Bangladesh. Most parts of West Bengal, Assam and Tripura borders are fenced.