The Border Security Force has successfully contained the influx of Rohingya Muslims from Bangladesh to India, BSF Director General KK Sharma said on Friday.
“We are alive to the situation,” ANI quoted him as saying. “We are aware that a large number of Rohingya are assembled there in Bangladesh and from time to time some small groups did try to enter India, but I am very happy to say that we did not let them succeed.”
Sharma was speaking after a high-level biannual coordination meeting between the Border Security Force and the Border Guard Bangladesh in New Delhi. The visiting delegation was led by the Border Guard Bangladesh Director General Major General Shafeenul Islam.
Since the Rohingya already in India are “under pressure” in some places, they are now relocating to West Bengal, Sharma said. The state, he added, has set up camps for the Rohingya Muslims travelling within the country and not from Bangladesh.
“So I am very happy to say that the BSF has successfully contained the influx of Rohingya and we have not allowed any intrusion so far,” said Sharma. “This has also been verified by our sister agencies.”
Islam agreed with his counterpart, saying there was hardly any large-scale or organised influx, reported PTI. He said a majority of Bangladeshis crossing into India do so to visit their relatives. The compulsion to cross over has decreased as “the people enjoy a very good life now in Bangladesh”, he added.
The Bangladesh border force has intercepted only 100 people along the 4,096 km border with India in the last six months, Islam claimed.
But Sharma said the Border Security Force has arrested 1,522 undocumented Bangladeshi immigrants this year. Of them, 166 had crossed into India by accident while a few others were being trafficked. “We are sensitising our troops to differentiate between the victim and the perpetrator of the crime of human trafficking,” the BSF chief added.
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