30 Bangladeshis lodged in Assam jails deported back

Thirty Bangladeshi nationals, including three women, who had entered India illegally were sent back to the neighbouring country through the Sutarkandi border in Assam’s Karimganj district on Thursday, officials said.

The Bangladeshis had entered India without valid documents and were lodged in various detention centres in Assam following convictions by local courts. All of them have completed their sentences.

“A total of 30 persons were sent back on Thursday. They were deported in batches of five persons after completion of formalities and handed over to Bangladesh authorities,” Karimganj’s superintendent of police Manavendra Dev Ray said.

The Bangladeshis were kept in detention camps inside jails in Cachar, Korajhar, Tezpur, Goalpara and Jorhat districts of the northeastern state. Assam has six such detention centres where people who are declared foreigners by foreigners’ tribunals are kept.

Unlike ‘declared foreigners’, who are kept in detention centres for failing to prove they are Indian citizens, the Bangladeshis deported on Thursday were ‘convicted foreigners’ who entered India without valid documents.

This is not the first time self-proclaimed Bangladeshis have been expelled from Assam. In July 2018, 52 of them were sent back and another 21 deported in January this year. Twenty more were sent back in May this year.

At present, there are around 60 more Bangladeshi nationals who have been sentenced by courts for entering India illegally and are lodged in various detention centres in Assam.