Following directives to keep a close watch on infiltration in the backdrop of the ongoing unrest in Bangladesh, Kolkata police on Thursday night arrested an employee of a post office Basirhat, North 24 Parganas, on the charges of helping Bangladeshi nationals to procure documents related to India’s citizenship illegally.
Taraknath Sen, the suspect, was arrested by the sleuths of the Kolkata police’s security control organisation (SCO) while probing into the involvement of a racket which helps Bangladeshi nationals to get forged documents required to claim Indian citizenship.
Recently, the director general of the National Investigation Agency (NIA) held a meeting with West Bengal’s director general of police Rajeev Kumar to discuss measures to be taken to prevent infiltration from Bangladesh.
“We swung into action and came to know about the racket. Two operatives of the racket, Samaresh Biswas and Dipak Mondal were rounded up from North 24 Parganas and South 24 Parganas districts respectively. Pursuing the leads provided by the two during the course of interrogation, we arrested Sen from Basirhat, a pocket close to India Bangladesh border,” said an officer of the SCO.
The investigators came to know the racket used to charge ₹2 lakh from each Bangladeshi to help them to get Aadhar Card and Voter card.
Border Security Force (BSF) personnel said there was a significant surge in infiltration after Sheikh Hasina’s government fell on August 5 this year. The BSF arrested 148 Bangladeshi nationals in south Bengal within a span of four months starting from August. The BSF said the figure reflects a seven-fold surge in arrests of infiltrators as the number was only 20 between January to July.
Intelligence agencies suspect around 1,500 Bangladeshis have already crossed over the border illegally and melted into India’s population in the past four months.
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