[Assam] Bangladeshi migrants arrested, a well-organised racket is operating in the district and helping the Bangladeshis enter the country.

[Pradip Kumar Datta]

        Bangladeshi migrants arrested, a well-organised racket is operating in the district and helping the Bangladeshis enter the country.
   
  Hunt for Dhubri Bangladeshi migrants
    OUR CORRESPONDENT      Dhubri, June 19: Police today launched a hunt in Dhubri district, a day after the arrest of five Bangladeshi migrants. 
  The move follows reports that a larger group of Bangladeshis had managed to evade surveillance.
  A team led by deputy superintendent of police (headquarters) Subhashish Barua, arrested the five from Amco Road, Char Bidyapara and Bogulamari on the outskirts of Dhubri town. Officer-in-charge of Dhubri police station, Moni Saikia and officer-in-charge of Amco Road Bazar police out-post, Zakir Ahmed, accompanied the team.
  Sources in the police said the five who had been arrested earlier had alerted the group, reportedly through cellphones. According to the tip-off, a large group of illegal migrants from Bangladesh were taking shelter in these areas. 
  However, most of them fled during the raids.
  “We are also investigating how these Bangladeshis managed to procure mobile connections. We are taking up the matter with the higher authorities,” said a senior police official involved in the operation. 
  The five have been identified as Sofiqul Islam (21), Mohammad Abdul Khayer (40), Mohammad Baser Shiekh (35), Imdad Shiekh (32) and Mohammad Ismail Sheikh (22). They hail from Goghalia village of Gopalganj district in Bangladesh, the police said.
  Safiqul Islam told the police during interrogation that he had sneaked into India in 1995 through the Bongaon international border in West Bengal and settled in Bogulamari. “Most of us came to India in search of jobs. We have been selling mosquito nets, bedsheets and utensils to earn our livelihood,” Islam told the police. 
  However, the police said a well-organised racket was operating in the district and helping the Bangladeshis enter the country. They provide the migrants with shelter, jobs and even protection in exchange for money. 
  The police said they came to know about the racket following the arrest of one Mohammad Katon Biswas last month from Bilasipara. 
  Biswas allegedly was an agent of a group engaged in trafficking. 
  The All Assam Students’ Union said the arrest was just the tip of the iceberg. The students’ union’s border affairs co-ordinator, Enamul Hoque, alleged that there is contin-uous infiltration through the Indo-Bangla border in Dhubri.

       
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