Guwahati: In two separate but strikingly similar incidents, a total of ten Bangladeshi nationals have been detained at airports in Assam and Tripura within the same day — a development that has once again put the spotlight on the growing menace of illegal immigration and document forgery in India’s Northeast.
CISF detained one suspected couple at the new terminal of Lokpriya Gopinath Bordoloi International Airport in Guwahati on June 28 evening. The detained Bangladeshi nationals — identified as Rana Molla and Mafuja Akhtar Lima. Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) personnel during routine security checks intercepted the suspicious couple just before they were about to board a flight bound for Mumbai.
“They were Bangladeshi nationals and entered India. illegally. A case has been registered and investigations are on”, said a Guwahati city police official.
As per report, security personnel recovered forged Indian Aadhaar cards in the name of Rana Saha and Kabita Saha bearing address of Kolkata. Two Bangladesh government ID cards were also recovered from the arrested couple where it was mentioned that Rana Molla is the son of Imadul Mulla and Mafuja Akhtar Lima is daughter of Md Hasem Kazi. The two had apparently been planning to travel from Guwahati to Mumbai using these fake identity papers — a plan that was foiled at the last possible moment before boarding. After their interception, the duo was handed over to Azara Police for further investigation. Authorities are now looking into how the forged documents were obtained, how long the two had been in India, and what their activities in the country involved. Last week, another Bangladeshi woman was arrested in the LGBI airport in Guwahati by CISF. The lady was working in Bangalore using fake Indian IDs and was travelling to Guwahati to meet her boyfriend.
Eight Bangladeshi nabbed in Agartala
Simultaneously, Tripura police have arrested 8 Bangladeshi infiltrators in an operation at Maharaja Bir Bikram (MBB) Airport in Agartala. The operation began after police received a specific intelligence input — that four Bangladeshi nationals were planning to enter Tripura and quietly fly out of the state using the Agartala airport. Acting swiftly on this tip-off, police tightened surveillance around the airport and managed to apprehend four individuals.
But the story did not end there. During questioning, the four detainees let slip information that led investigators straight to four more individuals hiding in the vicinity of the airport. All four were picked up, bringing the total number of detentions in Agartala to eight. An official from the Airport Police Station confirmed that while the first four arrests were based on solid intelligence, it was the interrogation of the initial group that cracked open the rest of the case.
The recent arrests of Bangladeshi nationals in different airports in Northeast have shown the change of routes by the infiltrators. Seeing strict vigilance in roads and rail stations, the infiltrators are taking air transport as a safe mode of reaching their destinations across India.
