17 illegal Bangladeshi immigrants arrested from Mathura

AGRA: Seventeen illegal immigrants from Bangladesh including four women and eight children were arrested by police on Sunday for residing in Mathura’s Akbarpur village, under Chhata police jurisdiction, without proper documents and visas.
According to police, on the basis of a tip-off, they nabbed the 17 Bangladeshis who had been living illegally in the village since July 10. They all were booked under section 14 of the Foreigners Act, 1946.
Station house officer of Chhatta police station, Ramesh Bhardwaj, said the arrested immigrants had crossed the Indo-Bangladesh border illegally in search of jobs and had been moving from one place to another since then.He said that they were working here as ragpickers and lived in huts in the slum area.
According to senior officials, due to the large influx of international tourists in the temple town and easy access to food and employment, the immigrants usually find it lucrative to settle here. Interestingly, some of the illegal immigrants managed to get Aadhar cards, voter cards, PAN cards and even Indian Passport. However, the arrested ones did not have any such documents.
On November 20, nine illegal immigrants from Bangladesh were arrested and were found in possession of fake Aadhar cards.
On January 14, eight Bangladeshi nationals were nabbed with fake documents. Some of them had been living there for the last three years.
Last year, on Nov 22, a Bangladeshi youth, who was living as a Krishna devotee at the ISKCON temple in Vrindavan was arrested by the local police on charges of illegally entering and staying in India. He had been found in possession of fake identity documents including Aadhaar, Passport and PAN cards etc.
Several such illegal migrants were arrested last year. On Oct 8, sixteen illegal Bangladeshi nationals were arrested from Mathura. They were found with valid Aadhaar and voter cards, which they had procured by submitting fake documents to government offices in order to “legalise” their stay in India. They had been staying in Mathura for the past three years. Thirteen illegal Bangladeshi immigrants, including five women and four children, were arrested from Mathura on July 2 also.