GUWAHATI: Dhubri district police detained 36 suspected Bangladeshi nationals for allegedly entering India illegally at Jogamaya Ferry Ghat on Friday following specific intelligence inputs about their movement.
All the detainees were men aged between 30 and 50. They were detained after a motorised boat carrying them and other passengers arrived at the ferry ghat through the Brahmaputra river route. The group had travelled from Hatsingimari in neighbouring South Salmara-Mankachar district.
Speaking to reporters, some detainees said they had paid Bangladeshi middlemen between Rs 14,000 and Rs 17,000 to arrange their journey. “I came to work,” one of them said. Another said he had come to work as a mason in Chennai.
Dhubri Senior Superintendent of Police Debashish Bora said police had received intelligence inputs over the past two days about a large group entering India from Bangladesh and possibly heading towards Dhubri through the river route.
“Later, a boat arrived carrying 120 people. We detained 36 of them following a screening,” the SP said.
According to the preliminary investigation, the detainees are from Chapainawabganj district in Bangladesh’s Rajshahi Division. Police recovered mobile phones and documents from them and formed a team to question the detainees.
"We will try to find out how they came here and who helped them,” the SP said.
Police have informed the concerned agencies about the suspected illegal entry and the detention.
The BSF guards the India-Bangladesh border, but more than 30 km of the riverine stretch along the international border in the Dhubri sector remains unfenced. The force deploys the Comprehensive Integrated Border Management System to secure the stretch.
Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said his government would act firmly to protect the state’s interests and remove every infiltrator.