Assam detains 27 Bangladeshi nationals in joint operation with railway police

Assam Police, in a joint operation with the Government Railway Police (GRP), detained 27 Bangladeshi nationals who had allegedly entered the state illegally, from Guwahati and Rangia on Wednesday, officials said on Thursday.

The process to send them back to Bangladesh has begun, they added.

Police said the Bangladeshi nationals included men, women and minors. Initial investigations suggest they came from several districts of Bangladesh, including Dhaka, Sunamganj, Gopalganj, Bagherhat, Khulna and Mymensingh.

“They are citizens of Bangladesh and were travelling without valid documents, so we detained them. Now we’ll examine how they entered Assam and where they were trying to go,” a senior police officer said.

Deputy commissioner of police (border) for Guwahati Kulendra Nath Deka said on Thursday that 12 of them were detained at the Assam State Transport Corporation (ASTC) campus in Guwahati’s Paltan Bazar area on Wednesday.

He said that during questioning, the 12 detainees told police that another group of 15 people was travelling on the Jammu Tawi Express, and border police immediately alerted the GRP.

“We immediately informed the GRP at Rangia but the train had left the station by that time. The GRP identified and detained them on the moving train and they were handed over to us at Bongaigaon Railway Station,” he said.

The detained individuals told police they had entered India through a secret route in Meghalaya and that a racket had helped them do so in exchange for money, officials said.

Deka said the border department had started the process of sending the detainees back to Bangladesh and had placed a request before the concerned deputy commissioner for an expulsion order.

The Assam government follows the Immigrants (Expulsion from Assam) Act, 1950, to deport suspected illegal migrants.

In September last year, the Assam Cabinet approved an SOP under the 1950 Act, empowering district commissioners (DCs) to issue an expulsion order to any person who, in the view of the DC, is a foreigner.