Border Security Force personnel patrol past a fence on the India- Bangladesh border in Assam. File.
| Photo Credit: AP
GUWAHATI
Four Bangladeshi nationals, who entered Assam illegally, were pushed back in the last 24 hours but 16 others went “missing” to trigger a search operation.
Police said they came in two unequal groups, one via southern Assam’s Karimganj district and the other through western Assam’s South Salmara-Mankachar district. Their destination was the same – Tamil Nadu, where they were promised jobs in garment factories.
“On Monday night, the police apprehended Md. Abu Shaid, Asadul Islam, and Md. Sarwar from the Rajshahi district of Bangladesh. One of them entered India for the second time and was carrying an Aadhaar card,” Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said.
The trio wanted to travel to Chennai for work but were pushed back from the Karimganj sector, he said.
The Chief Minister said Lipi Akhtar was the fourth Bangladeshi national pushed back. She was sent back from the Dhubri sector.
“Investigation revealed Akhtar entered Indian territory in the early hours of August 18 at Sukchar, South Salmara district on foot, after multiple bus and boat rides spanning over 24 hours,” he said.
A manhunt was underway to trace other accomplices or infiltrators, he added.
The woman, who generated suspicion after alighting from a country boat on the Brahmaputra riverbank in Dhubri town after dusk, was caught by the locals at 7 p.m. on Monday and handed over to the police.
Dhubri’s Superintendent of Police Navin Singh said the woman claimed there were 16 others with her. “We are verifying her statement and doing the needful,” he said.
The Bangladeshi woman said she got separated from the group, which included her husband Khokan Mondal, after walking through jungles and on chars (sandbars) and crossing rivers on boat at night from Bangladesh’s Chandpur district to the border with India.
She said their first stop in India was Hazirhaat, a village close to the international border in the South Salmara-Mankachar district. They then crossed the Brahmaputra River in small groups by boat to reach Dhubri.
“Two men, one Halim from Bangladesh and another from Assam helped us enter India. We had plans to work at a garment factory in Tamil Nadu and the two told us to pay them ₹20,000 each later,” she said.
She also said the 17 were from villages under Faridganj police station and Kalir Bazaar post office in Bangladesh’s Chandpur district.
Bids by Bangladeshi nationals to work in garment factories in southern India have put the spotlight on the textile industry in Bangladesh, a global garment manufacturing hub in recent times. The industry was first hit by a severe gas shortage in June followed by the political unrest leading to the ouster of Sheikh Hasina as the Prime Minister.
Some 290 Bangladeshi nationals and Rohingya people have been caught entering India illegally over the last three months in Tripura, one of four north-eastern States sharing a border with Bangladesh. Many of them were caught boarding trains at the Agartala railway station.
