Police in Bengaluru on Tuesday arrested a family of three persons whom they found to be Bangladeshi citizens staying illegally in India. The arrests were made in Munnekolala near Whitefield, in the eastern fringe of the city.
The accused have been identified as 55-year-old Mohammed Lokman, a resident of Boresel village of Pirojpur district in Bangladesh. His wife, 35-year-old Jasmin Begum and their 22-year-old son Raasel, were the other two arrested.
Whitefield DCP Anuchet told The Hindu that the trio admitted to being Bangladeshis following the arrest and police have also recovered Bangladeshi identity cards from them including a national ID card and birth certificates. The three have been booked by Marathahalli police under the Foreigners Act.
Incidentally, this arrest comes after Marathahalli police and some BBMP officials led a demolition drive recently on a private land near Sakra Hospital within the Whitefield subdivision over claims of illegal immigrants living there.
However, following criticism from activists on ground and media scrutiny, the BBMP Commissioner said the demolitions were illegal and unauthorised. Narayan Swamy, Assistant Executive Engineer (AEE), Mahadevapura Zone has been transferred out of the BBMP and disciplinary action will be recommended against him.
All the residents there were found to be blue collar workers who had migrated from north Karnataka or other parts of the country like Assam, West Bengal.
Previously, police had detained 60 such suspects in October 2019 and at a press conference led by City Police Commissioner Bhaskar Rao, the police said that these suspected illegal immigrants were living in shanties in peripheral areas of the city falling under Ramamurthynagar, Bellandur and Marathahalli police station limits.
Police had then said that the Foreigner’s Regional Registration Office was informed and the people will be handed over to the Border Security Force (BSF), who will deport them to Bangladesh instead of them facing arrest by the city police.
That time, the drive was led by the Central Crime Branch police who were probing the issue of illegal migrants after an intelligence report.
Police had then said many of the detained were employed as daily wage labourers and worked either in the construction sector or collected scraps. Some of them were also employed by contractors of the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP).