13 foreigners arrested, asked to leave country within a week

Haridwar, Aug 9 (UNI) Thirteen foreign nationals, arrested by the police yesterday for unauthorisedly indulging in religious activities while on a tourist visa, have been asked to leave India within a week.

''Thirteen foreign nationals, all belonging to a particular community, who had come to the country as tourists but had enlisted themselves in Tablighi Jamaat (Community of Preachers), were nabbed by the district police from a mosque at Roorkee yesterday,'' police sources said.

These 13 -- 10 Indonesian and three British citizens -- had come here on July, 27 with two translators, Mumbai resident Zakir Hussain and Abbas Khan, resident of Raigarh (Maharastra.) Haridwar Local Intelligence Unit (LIU) chief Satyaveer Singh, who had led the team which nabbed them, told UNI that these foreign nationals had violated the provisions of the Foreigners Act, 1946, which forbade foreign nationals, coming to India on tourist visas, from undertaking any other activity, including religious preaching and any commercial activity. ''Those who violate these provisions are liable to be punished with a term of imprisonment, upto five years.

SSP Abhinav Kumar said that the passports of these 13 people had been endorsed with the fact of their violation of the provisions of the Foreigners Act and they had been blacklisted.

''They have been asked to leave the country within a week or face legal action,'' he said. A report about their illegal activities has also been sent to the External Affairs Ministry and the Union Home Ministry.

UNI XC VD PM1609