Eleven more Bangladeshi nationals, including five women, were arrested from the Agartala railway station for entering India illegally as they sought to make their way to other states of the country in search of jobs, officials said on Sunday.
Acting on reports, Government Railway Police (GRP) personnel conducted a thorough search of a Guwahati-bound train and apprehended the Bangladeshi nationals on Saturday night, a GRP official said.
He said that during questioning, the Bangladeshi nationals could not show any passport or any other valid travel document for entering Indian territory.
The detainees, aged between 20 to 36 years, told the police that they had plans to go to Chennai or Mumbai or Kolkata in search of jobs.
“We are investigating whether these Bangladeshi nationals are part of human trafficking attempts,” the official said.
With these 11 fresh detainees, over 70 Bangladeshi nationals have so far been arrested in Tripura in the last two months.
All of them had entered Tripura illegally, in search of jobs in various states of India. Despite most parts of the 856 km India-Bangladesh border in Tripura being already fenced and strict security put in place, Bangladeshi nationals are often being caught in the northeastern state.
