Cops swoop down on foreigners staying illegally in Hyderabad; 23 held

HYDERABAD: Cracking the whip on foreigners illegally staying in the city, law enforcement officers carried out a pre-dawn swoop in select residential pockets on Tuesday and detained 23 persons. Of them, 17 foreigners are likely to be deported soon.
Around 4.00am, 21 teams comprising cops drawn from Hyderabad police, Task Force, intelligence, Special Branch wings of Telangana and officers from Foreigners Regional Registration Office (FRRO) fanned out into areas in Golconda, Asifnagar, Humayun Nagar, Osmania University, Amberpet, Saifabad, Chikkadpally and Chandrayangutta and conducted surprise checks at specific houses and hostels.
“During the checks, which continued till 4.00pm, our teams questioned 74 foreigners and examined their documents, including passports and visas. After the nearly 12-hour exercise, we identified that 23 foreigners have been overstaying without a valid visa or a document,” Hyderabad police commissioner Anjani Kumar said.
Family from Yemen among defaulters
Among the 23 foreigners was a family of 6, comprising a couple and their four children, from Yemen who had overstayed after the expiry of their visas. The family has agreed to pay the compounding fee of $400 per head and take an exit permit from the Bureau of Immigration officials and return to their homeland.
Officials of Special Branch and FRRO were processing details of the remaining 17 overstaying foreigners, including two women, from Nigeria, Sudan, Somalia, Djibouti and Kenya. According to sources, some of the foreigners did not even have a passport and refused to provide their original identity or nationality.
“The 17 foreigners came to India on student and tourist visas. They overstayed. Those who came on student visas had not renewed their visas and most of them were not even attending colleges. Some of them were getting scholarship from their countries and spending it here,” a Special Branch official said.
“Those who overstayed their visas can regularise it by paying a compounding fee. They can also pay the penalty and leave by taking an exit visa. Otherwise, as per the Passport Act, they will be detained and deported,” Anjani Kumar said.
Those who did not have a passport and refused to give details of nationality would be kept at a detention centre. “Once they realise that they will be kept in detention, most of offenders either ask their friends to bring the passport they had hidden or at least provide us the passport number to contact their embassy to get a new passport. All such offenders will be deported,” an intelligence official said.
In case of deportation, the central government would have to bear the cost of flight tickets if the deportee is unable to make his or her own arrangements. If the state government spends on flight tickets, the Centre would reimburse the amount later.
Since August 2018, nine foreign drug peddlers, who had documents and no previous criminal record, have been deported from Hyderabad, while 21 others, who either had cases against them or did not possess passport, have been arrested by the excise and Task Force police.