SILCHAR, June 23: Police have detained 15 suspected Bangladeshis who had entered the country illegally from Assam’s Cachar district, an officer said on Monday.
Ten Bangladeshis, including two children and five women, were detained from Hilara area in Katigorah while five others were intercepted by locals in Bishambarpur village under West Katigorah and handed over to police on Sunday night.
The detained people have been sent to a temporary detention centre in Silchar, police said.
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The Assam Police have launched a statewide crackdown on illegal immigrants, particularly Bangladeshis, residing without valid documents.
As per the official records, nearly 100 undocumented Bangladeshis have been detained over the past four weeks from Cachar’s Katigorah area, which shares a border with Bangladesh.
In the last three days alone, 21 individuals were apprehended and they will be deported across the international border as per state government instructions, the police officer said.
“The detained persons told us they had travelled from Gujarat and were attempting to return to their country by crossing the border. Some local residents, with the help of the Village Defence Party (VDP), stopped them, and our team detained them,” the officer said.
The detained persons claimed that they were originally from Khulna in Bangladesh and had been living in Surat, Gujarat, for the past several years. Fearing arrest amid a recent crackdown on undocumented migrants in Gujarat, they decided to return to Bangladesh, he said.
Last week, another group of nine Bangladeshis, including women and children, were stopped in Hilara while travelling in two autorickshaws.
They told police they had entered India illegally 5–6 years ago and were also attempting to return home after living in Gujarat.
Earlier this month, Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said that 35 Bangladeshis had been caught in Katigorah after the crackdown began and all of them were later deported.
He said that nearly 330 illegal migrants had been sent back from Assam in the last one month, with more expected to be pushed back soon. (PTI)
