The Tripura Police on Tuesday claimed to have arrested two Rohingya men near the India-Bangladesh border after local people tipped them off, PTI reported.
Mohammad Salim, a 21-year-old, and 20-year-old Jahangir Alam were arrested from Rajnagar village in West Tripura district the day before. “It was found during preliminary investigation that they had entered Indian territory from Bangladesh in search of jobs,” said Officer-in-charge of Battala police station Sahadeb Bhowmik.
Refugee cards were recovered from the two, who confessed that they had lived in a camp for Rohingyas in Chittagong in Bangladesh. Salim and Alam were scheduled to be produced in a local court on Tuesday.
Border security officials said undocumented Rohingya immigrants have often used the Tripura corridor of the India-Bangladesh border to enter India.
In June 2018, the Ministry of Home Affairs had instructed all the states to make sure that the activities of undocumented immigrants were monitored by police and intelligence agencies. The refugees pose “serious challenges” and security concerns as some of them engage in illegal activities and are “vulnerable to radicalisation”, the ministry had told the states. They had also been asked to record the biometrics of refugees to stop them from getting Indian identity documents.
The Centre had announced in August 2017 that it was planning to deport all Rohingya refugees living in the country. The government had told the Supreme Court that the continued illegal immigration of Rohingyas to India had “serious national security ramifications and threats”. The deportation order was challenged in court. Last week, the Supreme Court agreed to examine in August if undocumented Rohingya immigrants can be granted refugee status.
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