The Border Security Force on Wednesday said there had been no new cases of Rohingya infiltration into India this year, IANS reported. “We have alerted our troops and mobilised resources along the entire 4,096-km India-Bangladesh border,” Border Security Force Additional Director General (Eastern Command) RP Singh was quoted as saying.
Singh said the Centre had not given the paramilitary force any specific instructions on Rohingyas, and it was their duty to prevent infiltration at any cost. “Whether they are Rohingyas or Bangladeshis, if they do not have a valid passport, it does not make any difference,” he said. “For us, infiltrators are just infiltrators.”
The BSF officer said no illegal immigrants had been arrested in the past few months.
However, the border force has begun to identify vulnerable spots along the India-Bangladesh stretch, after receiving orders from its top officials in New Delhi, and is ready to prevent any attempts by Rohingya Muslims to enter India, The Indian Express reported.
“The mandate given to us is clear: it is to deal with them firmly. We will identify [Rohingya Muslims] and push back,” Inspector General of the BSF in South Bengal PSR Anajaneyulu was quoted as saying.
Earlier, the BSF was told to arrest the immigrants and hand them over to the state police, but they will now be pushed back.
The routes that the Rohingyas are likely to take and vulnerable spots like Ghojadanga and Petrapol have been identified in West Bengal, a senior BSF officer told the daily. “After entering Bengal, there is a possibility that they will enter Kolkata and then move to different parts of the country,” the officer said, adding that it was “challenging to identify Rohingyas” as they rarely carry the correct documents, and the semi-porous border worsened the situation.
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