20-year-old Bangladeshi woman arrested in Kolkata for illegally entering India

The woman claimed that she is a Hindu and her name is Baby Biswas. However, she had no document to prove her identity

Kolkata’s Sealdah court on Sunday remanded a 20-year-old Bangladeshi woman in police custody for two weeks on charges of entering India without passport and visa, police said.

The woman said she had taken a train to Mumbai to work as a maid but returned to Kolkata on finding the Mumbai police searching for Bangladeshi infiltrators

The woman claimed that she is a Hindu and her name is Baby Biswas. However, she had no document to prove her identity. She was arrested under Foreigner’s Act on Saturday near Sealdah railway station by officers from the Entally police station

“The woman claimed to have sneaked into India 12 days ago. She said she had taken a train to Mumbai to work as a maid but returned to Kolkata on finding the Mumbai police searching for Bangladeshi infiltrators. The woman claimed she is a resident of Barisal. Her statements are being verified,” said a Kolkata police officer who didn’t wish to be named.

Police have started an investigation to find out who helped the woman enter India undetected and board a train from Kolkata despite heightened vigilance by the Border Security Force and other agencies since last year in view of the unrest in Bangladesh.

The vigilance was tightened further in November amid reports of alleged attacks on the minority Hindu community and the arrest of Bangladesh-based Iskcon monk Chinmoy Krishna Das on sedition charges.

Several illegal immigrants and a couple of Bengal citizens who allegedly helped them were arrested from the border districts in recent weeks. A probe into a passport racket is also underway.