Delhi: 3 Bangladeshis held in raid on illegal immigrants

The drive is part of a two-month-long crackdown ordered by lieutenant governor VK Saxena on December 10

The Delhi Police arrested three Bangladeshi nationals, including a mother-son duo, during their verification drive across the city aimed at identifying and deporting illegal immigrants, said officers. The arrests were made in south Delhi’s Sarojini Nagar and Moti Bagh areas between December 28 and 30, police officials said on Tuesday.

Verification of the documents of the remaining 851 suspicious persons is still under process as they couldn’t produce authentic papers proving their bona fide Indian citizenship, said a senior Delhi Police officer (File Photo)

Between December 10 and December 28, multiple teams of the city police checked documents of 16,645 people living in unauthorised colonies, slums, vacant government-owned lands, and footpaths across Delhi to identify and nab illegal Bangladeshi migrants.While documents of 15,748 persons were found genuine during the verification drives, a total of 46 Bangladeshis were found to be staying illegally in India, either as illegal immigrants or those who were overstaying despite their visas having expired.

Verification of the documents of the remaining 851 suspicious persons is still under process as they couldn’t produce authentic papers proving their bona fide Indian citizenship, said a senior Delhi Police officer. The drive is part of a two-month-long crackdown ordered by lieutenant governor VK Saxena on December 10 to combat the influx of illegal Bangladeshi migrants. The Delhi Police and government teams have been conducting searches in slums, unauthorised colonies, construction sites, and footpaths, police said.

Arrests and deportations

In one case, Naim Khan, 22, was arrested on December 29 near Shastri Market in Moti Bagh after failing to provide identification documents, police said. Khan later admitted to being an illegal Bangladeshi migrant from Sundar Guna village, Vibhag-Khulna. His interrogation led to the arrest of his mother, Nazma Khan, 40, on December 30, they added.

“Nazma had entered India illegally in 2005 with her son, who was two years old at the time. They had been living in Delhi since, working as domestic help and a private worker, respectively. Both have been deported to Bangladesh through the Foreigners Regional Registration Office (FRRO),” said Deputy commissioner of police (southwest) Surendra Choudhary. Police are investigating how the duo managed to stay undetected for nearly two decades and secured jobs and accommodation despite being undocumented migrants, he added.

In another incident, Mohammad Akhtar Sheikh, a construction worker in his late 30s, was arrested in Sarojini Nagar on December 28 for possession of narcotic substances, officers aware of the case said. He initially claimed to be from West Bengal, but police later found his documents to be fake.

“Sheikh’s interrogation revealed that he was born in Kochaghata, Bangladesh, and illegally migrated to West Bengal in 2004. He married a Hindu woman in 2012 and later moved to Delhi for work,” Choudhary said.

According to police, while Nazma and Naim were deported, Sheikh was sent to Tihar Jail due to his involvement in a criminal case under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act.