Agartala, July 10: Three women belonging to the Rohingya community from Myanmar have been detained along with two children in Tripura. They had enter from Bangladesh and were about to board a train for Kashmir via West Bengal said police.
This incident unfolded on Sunday when Inspector Sankar Saha, Officer-in-Charge of Kumarghat Police Station, acted on a tip-off and conducted a search in the Kumarghat rail station area in Unakoti district of Tripura. As a result, three Rohingya refugees from Bangladesh camp were detained. Additionally, two children were found in their company.
During the investigation, it was revealed that they had entered Indian territory without any relevant documents through the Tilla Bazar area in Kailasehar on the same day morning. Their intended destination was Sealdah in West Bengal, and from there, they had plans to travel to Kashmir.
The detained individuals have been identified as Anjuma (26), Ayesh Begam (22) and Nunaha (20), all from Rohinga refugee camps in Cox Bazaar and are currently undergoing interrogation by the authorities, and subsequently, they will be forwarded to the court for legal proceedings.
The police officer said that a case has been registered regarding this incident under the number 49 of 2023, invoking Sections 120 B of the Indian Penal Code, Section 3 of The Passport Act and 14 of The Foreigners Act.
This incident highlights a growing concern regarding the security and border management in Tripura. Despite significant efforts to secure the border, including the fencing of over 95 percent of the 857-kilometer border that Tripura shares with Bangladesh using barbed wire and the deployment of a substantial number of Border Security Forces (BSF), incidents of unauthorized entry into Indian territory via Tripura have become alarmingly frequent.
It has been observed from the interrogation of the detained individuals that Tripura is being utilized as a corridor by Myanmar Rohingyas residing in refugee camps in Cox Bazaar, Bangladesh, to access major cities in India, such as Delhi, Kashmir, and Hyderabad.
This raises questions about the effectiveness of the current security measures and border management protocols. The authorities will need to reassess and reinforce the existing systems to ensure the prevention of such daily occurrences within Tripura.
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