Tripura court sends Bangladeshi woman, Indian lover to 14-day judicial custody

A Tripura court has remanded a 35-year-old Bangladeshi woman and her Indian lover to 14-day judicial custody after they were arrested in the state's Sepahijala district, officials said on Friday.

A police official said the Border Security Force (BSF), acting on a tip-off, detained the Bangladeshi woman and her lover, Datta Yadav, from Kamthana on Thursday afternoon and later handed them over to the Tripura Police at Madhupur.

The couple was produced before a local court, which remanded them to judicial custody for 14 days.

According to the police, the woman had previously worked in a beauty parlour and private firm in Mumbai and Bengaluru, where she fell in love with Yadav, a resident of Bidar district in Karnataka.

Yadav, a contractor in Karnataka, had come to Tripura to take the woman back to Bengaluru. However, she had also entered Tripura illegally from Bangladesh two days ago, without a passport or visa.

"During her stay in Bengaluru, she fell in love with Yadav. Recently, she returned to Bangladesh and then illegally entered Tripura to reunite with him and planned to travel back to Bengaluru," the police official said.

The woman is a resident of Bogura (Bogra) district in Bangladesh.

After reuniting, the couple stayed at the house of an Indian resident in Madhupur village and were planning to travel to Bengaluru before they were arrested, the official added.

Police have registered specific cases under the Passports Act, the Foreigners Act, and the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS), 2023.

The police said all those involved in the case will be arrested.

Tripura Police, BSF, and other law enforcement agencies have intensified operations to crack down on human trafficking networks facilitating illegal infiltration from Bangladesh.

Tripura shares an 856-km-long border with Bangladesh and is surrounded on three sides by the neighbouring country, making it highly vulnerable to cross-border migration and related crimes.

Except for some unfenced patches, most of the Indo-Bangladesh border in Tripura has been fenced to prevent smuggling, trans-border crimes, and illegal infiltration.

Meanwhile, security agencies across Tripura and other northeastern states, following directions from the Union Ministry of Home Affairs, have intensified efforts to trace Bangladeshi nationals, Rohingyas, and other foreign nationals illegally residing in India.