10 Bangladeshi nationals arrested from Basirhat

Police arrested 10 Bangladeshi nationals, including a woman, from Amudia area in Basirhat on Monday night for illegally intruding into the Indian Territory.

The North 24 Parganas district police started to investigate the reason for which these Bangladeshi nationals had crossed over. The investigators are not ruling out possibility of these Bangladeshi nationals being involved in illegal activities along the border area. Interrogation of the accused persons is on to know whether they had links with any terrorist outfit or not. The incident has raised a question mark on the role of security personnel who are there manning the the Indo-Bangla border in the area.

The investigators got a tip-off that some Bangladeshi nationals would assemble at Amudia after which a police team led by a senior officer raided the place and arrested the accused.

As all the accused persons failed to submit valid documents, the police arrested them on charges of illegally crossing the border. The accused have told the police that they were going to Kolkata to work in jewellery shops at Burrabazar.

"They entered into the Indian side with the help of a tout who helps people in crossing the border. They came from adjoining districts in Bangladesh without any valid documents. But we are not ruling out the possibility that these people may be involved in some sort of illegal activity," said a police officer.

It may be recalled that eight Bangladeshi nationals were arrested from Swarupnagar, North 24 Parganas last week for illegally crossing the India-Bangladesh border. The accused were arrested while they were standing at Nababkathi bus stand to board a bus. The investigators suspected that these people entered North 24 Parganas by illegally crossing the border at Ghojadanga. Such incidents of illegally crossing over the border are quite frequent. East Burdwan district police had arrested a Bangladeshi national a few months ago, whom the police suspect might have some involvement with the Khagragarh blast incident. The cops said that the accused, Rahul Mirbar who was arrested, was a resident of Ferozpur in Bangladesh.