8 held in Tripura for illegal entry of Bangladeshis, Rohingyas into India

The Assam police arrested eight persons, including two Bangladeshi nationals for arranging fake citizenship documents for Rohingyas and Bangladeshis illegally entering India from the neighbouring country, a senior officer said in Guwahati on Monday.

The arrests were made from different districts of Tripura by teams of Assam police's special task force, he said.

"As per the direction of the chief minister to launch operation against linkmen/ touts who help Rohingyas to enter India illegally, our five teams were dispatched to various bordering districts of Tripura," STF deputy inspector general Partha Sarathi Mahanta said.

The teams were headed by additional or deputy superintendents of police level officers, he added.

Eight persons were arrested in the operations, of whom two are from Bangladesh and rest from Tripura, the DIG said.

Mahanta said the touts used to procure fake identity and travel documents for Rohingyas and Bangladeshis to prove them as Indian citizens and then, help them board trains to different parts of the country.

"They facilitate the illegal immigrants to board Kolkata/Delhi/Hyderabad/ Bengaluru bound trains from Dharmanagar and Kumarghat in Tripura and from Badarpur in Assam.

"This is a major threat to national security and has the propensity to cause internal disturbance, thereby threatening unity, integrity and sovereignty of the country," the police officer said.

He said fake identity documents, like Aadhaar and PAN cards, and foreign currencies have been recovered from the arrested persons.

Mahanta said further investigation is on to crack down the entire illegal network and next round of operations would be carried out in other parts of the country where the touts are helping the Rohingyas to re-locate.

Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma had said last week that the state is being used as a corridor by the Rohingyas to either go to Delhi or Kashmir with the help of some brokers from Tripura.

"Assam is now being used as a corridor by the Rohingyas to go to Delhi or Kashmir. Our investigations have revealed that some brokers from Tripura facilitate this infiltration," Sarma had said addressing a SP's meet on Friday.

The CM said the Assam police teams had been deputed to bust the network of brokers and arrest them.

He had later also said that the state government had "adopted the strategy to push them back and not arrest them as they will then take bail and try to become citizens of the country".