New Delhi: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has launched a probe into illegal infiltration in Jharkhand carried out by agents by forging documents, ThePrint has learnt.
The case is a first under the stringent Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002, in which the ED is investigating suspected agents. They are involved in forging documents essential for citizenship and subsequently acquiring proceeds of crime through such illegal processes, the agency sources said.
The move comes after the BJP has made Bangladeshi illegal infiltration a big political issue before state polls later this year.
Addressing a rally in Jamshedpur Sunday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said infiltrators from Bangladesh were a major threat to tribal-inhabited Santhal Parganas and Kolhan regions. He added that infiltrators were “terrorising women” and trying to control the panchayat system.
‘Bangladeshis, Rohingyas major threat’
Modi said that Bangladeshi and Rohingya infiltrators had become a major threat in the Santhal Parganas and the Kolhan regions of Jharkhand.
He said: “The demography of these regions is changing fast. The tribal population is on the decline. The infiltrators are controlling the panchayat system, grabbing land, indulging in atrocities on daughters of the state… Each Jharkhand resident feels unsafe.”
The demography charge has been a major flashpoint between the BJP and the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha-led state government.
The Union Home Ministry filed an affidavit in the Jharkhand High Court last Thursday, suggesting there had been demographic changes in districts such as Sahibganj and Pakur. The ministry did not establish a link between infiltration and the change in demography.
The HC ordered a fact-finding committee to probe the matter.
Another case, the ‘predicate’ offence
Sources in the ED said a complaint was registered this year on the basis of a case filed by the Jharkhand Police over a complaint by a 21-year-old girl from Bangladesh, who said she was lured to India under the pretext of being offered a part-time job.
Complainant Nipah Akhtar Khushi alleged one Manisha Rai helped her and another girl cross over through the international border. They were promised a job in Kolkata but later shifted to Ranchi where more girls from Bengal stayed.
Later, Nipah and another girl from Bangladesh’s Chattogram were moved into an apartment that was already crowded. Some could have been pushed into prostitution instead of the promised job at a beauty parlour, probe agencies said.
Nipah managed to flee her apartment to reach out to a nearby police station, providing them with enough evidence to nab agents who “conspired” to traffick these girls from Bangladesh.
(Edited by Tikli Basu)
Also read: Why PM Modi & all BJP, JMM heavyweights are making a beeline for poll-bound Jharkhand’s Kolhan