NEWS

Karnataka to step up immigration checks

By Vicky Nanjappa in Bangalore
August 06, 2007 10:24 IST

Karnataka will beef up immigration checks in order to prevent illegal activities in the state.

The move comes after it was revealed that terror modules have been operating from the city.

The intelligence wing in Karnataka says that although the detection rate of illegal immigrants in the Karnataka has gone up, more measures will have to be taken to check this problem.

Another reason why Karnataka has decided to make its immigration laws stringent is due to the fact that over 30,000 Bangaloreans will be deported from the Gulf in September after they had been found to be illegal immigrants.

Deputy Commissioner of Police, Intelligence, Krishna Bhat, said the authorities in the Gulf had intimated them about the large number of illegal immigrants who had been tracked over a period of one year. They had found 2 lakh Indians out which 30,000 were from Bangalore.

The Bangalore police are also checking the antecedents of the foreign students who are studying in Bangalore and the police are not taking any chance, a top officer said.

In Bangalore, most of the foreign students study in medical colleges. The officer also adds that they plan to better detection methods. He said that they would scan once again the papers belonging to the foreign students and in case of any suspicion, the students will be deported from Bangalore.

On the illegal immigration issue in the Gulf, Krishna Bhat says that most of these people belong to the middle class and the lower strata of the society and who have been cheated by unauthorised agents.

The police fear that most of these persons may indulge in illegal activities once in Bangalore and hence every step has to be taken to curb this.

Bhat says that each one of them would have to be questioned as a precautionary measure.

Vicky Nanjappa in Bangalore

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