Reverse migration to Bangladesh would only increase: Intelligence Bureau sources

New Delhi, Jan 05: The sudden rise of Bangladeshis being arrested in Bangladesh could just be the beginning of a major exodus. At least 450 persons have been arrested by the Bangladesh police when they crossed over from India.

Most of the reverse migration is taking place by those who have settled in South India. These are the newer illegal migrants, who have come to India and have no documents.

Illegal immigrants from Karnataka and Hyderabad have been returning to Bangladesh.
Intelligence Bureau officials informed OneIndia that there has been a sudden surge in the number of people speaking Bengali in the Bangladesh dialect who have boarded trains to Bengal.

They land in Bengal, following which with the help of touts have been crossing over to Bangladesh. In the past one year nearly 1,000 such cases have been reported. However, in the past two months, there has been a major surge and at least 445 illegal immigrants have crossed over into Bangladesh.

Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB) Director General Maj Gen Md Shafeenul Islam disclosed the figure during a press briefing here. "About 1,000 people were arrested in 2019 for illegal border crossings from India to Bangladesh, with 445 of them returning home in November and December," he said.

After verifying their identities through local representatives, BGB came to know that all the intruders are Bangladeshis, Islam said, adding that 253 cases were lodged against them for illegal trespass, while initial investigations found that at least three of them were human traffickers.

The BGB Director said the trespassing did not create any tension between the border forces of Bangladesh and India.

Last week, Islam visited India where he said that the creation of the NRC is completely an "internal affair" of India and the cooperation between the border guarding forces of the two countries is very good.

He said the BGB will continue to do its work of preventing illegal border crossings as per its mandate. A BGB delegation, led by Islam, was on a bilateral visit to India to hold DG-level border talks with its counterparts, the Border Security Force (BSF).

The talks took place from December 26-29, during which a host of issues related to cross-border smuggling and activities of criminals and others along the 4,096-km-long front were discussed.

Responding to a question, Islam said, "No discussion was held at the conference over the (NRC) issue". He said during the five-day talks held in New Delhi, the BGB demanded that the BSF should take effective steps to prevent killings of Bangladeshis on frontiers as casualty figures sharply rose in 2019.

"The number of border killings in 2019 was highest in the last four years. As per our calculation, the number of such unexpected deaths was 35," the BGB chief said. However, the BSF estimate of the casualty figure is much lower than our calculation, he said.

Islam said the BSF is following the policy of maintaining maximum restraint and minimal use of force even after being attacked by "armed border offenders".

A statement issued by the BSF last month in New Delhi after the conclusion of the DG-level talks said, "On the concern of the BGB regarding the death of Bangladeshi nationals on borders, it was informed to them that a non-lethal weapon policy is strictly followed by BSF personnel on borders.

"Firing is resorted to only in self-defence, when BSF patrols are gheraoed and attacked by dah' (a sharp-edged weapon) etc. It was specified that the BSF does not discriminate between criminals based on nationality," it said.