Kolkata, Bengaluru: Five days have passed since 59 suspected Bangladeshi migrant workers detained by the Bengaluru police were brought to Kolkata for deportation. While they were to be immediately sent back to Bangladesh, the deportation process has since been stuck.
Escorted by a Karnataka Police team of 28 personnel, including women officers and led by a divisional commissioner, the group of migrant workers reached Howrah station in Kolkata Saturday evening. They were scheduled to be deported on the same day but the process was postponed, according to a police officer who said the next date for their deportation has not been decided yet.
These suspected Bangladeshi workers — 22 men, 25 women and 12 minors — had been working across Karnataka, and were to be deported through some border points in Bengal.
In November, said the police, a total of 170 migrants detained by different states including Karnataka have been deported through several BSF checkpoints in groups. Those groups were small in size and did not get any media attention. However, this group of 59 is said to be the biggest in recent times to have come to Bengal for deportation.
While no official reason has been given as to what is holding up the deportation, some factors are being speculated as the possible reasons. A police officer pointed out Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s visit to Kolkata on 22 November, bypolls on 25 November and the ongoing tension between the BSF and the Border Guards Bangladesh after a BSF jawan was killed in October could have caused the delay.
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Protest by rights group halted deportation
According to sources in the West Bengal Police, the Foreigners Division of the Ministry of Home Affairs wrote to the state government on 20 November to arrange for the “deportation of 59 illegal Bangladesh immigrants” from Karnataka.
Stating that the Karnataka government had requested the ministry to facilitate the handover and further process of the deportation, the letter seen by ThePrint said the West Bengal government was requested to make necessary arrangements for the process.
Bengaluru Police Commissioner Bhaskar Rao had also made a call to Bengal Police officers seeking their co-operation in completing the procedure.
However, the process usually carried out silently came under media glare after a group of rights activists started demonstrating at the Howrah station against the deportation when the train with the migrants arrived at 2.50 pm on Saturday, 23 November.
The railway police then took the migrants into custody and handed them over to the Bengal police for interim custody until the deportation process gets rescheduled, said the police sources.
The team of Karnataka Police escorted them to two different locations in Howrah. The men were taken to a police barrack in Shibpur while women were taken to Nishinda police station where arrangements were made for their accommodation.
In the last five days, the process has been scheduled and rescheduled, only to be postponed again.
According to a Bengaluru police officer, the date for deportation was first set for 23 November and later postponed to 26 November.
Deputy Commissioner (East) S.D. Sharanappa was in Kolkata for smoother coordination and completion of the procedure, the officer involved in the deportation process told ThePrint.
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Three likely reasons for delay in deportation
A senior BSF officer told ThePrint that the migrants were yet be handed over to them by the police. “We have not been given any dates as of now,” said the officer.
A senior police officer, however, said the BSF had asked for “a couple of days” as there was tension on the border and they needed to work on certain issues before carrying out the deportation process.
There are three likely reasons for the delay, said the officer. “Bangladeshi PM Sheikh Hasina was in Kolkata on 22 November and it was not politically proper to deport Bangladeshi nationals during her stay here. On 25 November, there was an election and BSF fell short of adequate force. Some of their companies were also sent to Jharkhand from south Bengal region. The third and probable reason can be the ongoing high-level talks between senior BSF officials.”
Top BSF officers are holding meetings over the issue of a jawan killed on the border by Border Guards Bangladesh after a flag meeting in October.
“We are expecting to get the process of deportation complete in the next few days,” the senior police officer added.
Meanwhile, some political observers said the 25 November Bengal bypolls too could have been a reason why the deportation was held up. Three assembly segments of Kharagpur Sadar, Karimpur and Kaliaganj went to poll Monday. Karimpur and Kaliaganj are located near the Bangladesh border, and the ruling Trinamool Congress reportedly did not want any disturbances in the area during the polls.
The border location from where the migrants will be deported is yet to be decided.
According to the sources ThePrint spoke to, the migrants are mostly from Khulna district in Bangladesh and hence they can be deported through some points in Nadia or North 24 Paragana.
On 26 October, 60 Bangladeshi nationals were arrested from Ramamurthy Nagar and Marathahalli areas in Bengaluru. After detailed investigation, the police found that 59 of them were illegally staying in the city.
This raid came after the Karnataka High Court sought a response from the state and the Centre to identify illegal Bangladeshi immigrants and deport them. The court’s direction came on a public interest litigation filed by a city-based advocate K.B. Vijayakumar.
In his petition, Vijayakumar had claimed that there had been a huge influx of illegal Bangladeshi immigrants into India and they pose a threat to society, both in Karnataka and the rest of the country. He added that the police department should collate information of Bangladeshis illegally staying and working in the country and immediately deport them under the Foreigners Act, 1946.
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God bless Mr. K. B. Vijayakumar. The nation needs more civic minded people like him.
59 is a paltry number. Having stayed in Bangalore for around two years I reckon the number of illegal Bangladeshi immigrants must be in thousands.
And the basis of your oh-so-confident assertion (other than your own “reckoning”) is? I have lived in Bengaluru (BTW it is no longer “Bangalore” so I guess you need some integration yourself) for nearly two decades and would question sweeping statements like this. There needs to be a lot of due diligence before declaring someone an “illegal alien”. The current mindset of declaring an individual guilty until proven innocent would cause great damage. Of course, I understand it makes for great coffee table conversation for the armchair “patriots”.
Entire IT belt has immigrants from bangladesh in lakhs. Govt makes arrangements to deport a handfull.