The Rohingya influx continues as Tripura police nets seven of them

New Delhi, Nov 09: The Tripura police have arrested seven Rohingya intruders on Thursday night after intercepting a passenger vehicle on the Assam-Tripura highway in the Bet Bagan area.

The police stopped the car at a check post under the Ambassa police station limits and interrogated those who were inside the vehicle. It was revealed that seven of them were Rohingyas and they had entered India through the Sonamura area with the help of their Indian handlers. All seven have been taken into custody.

During questioning they confessed that they came from a camp in the Chittagong district. After entering India they travelled to Agartala and were in touch with their Indian agent.

There are an estimated 40,000 Rohingyas who live in India and all of them had fled Myanmar following the violence that broke out there. The links to terror outfits, hawala transactions among others have often been quoted by our Intelligence Bureau on several occasions. A recent incident that took place in Jammu has only raised concerns about the kind of dealings that the Rohingyas are into and how they have become a front for illegal activity.

An Intelligence Bureau official tells OneIndia that this is a ticking time bomb and action has to be taken. There are several issues and the main one is that most of these persons are not documented, which makes tracking them extremely difficult.

While relying on Intelligence Bureau reports, the Centre says that "it has been found by the Central Government that many Rohingyas figured in suspected sinister designs of ISI
which has been responsible for spreading terrorism in Jammu and Kashmir and other parts of the country.

The Centre also said that the Rohingyas have also been mobilising funds through hawala channels and procuring fake and fabricated Indian identity documents for other Rohingyas and also indulging in human trafficking.

"Many of them have managed to acquire fake and fraudulently obtained Indian identity documents like PAN and voter cards," the Centre also says.

"With serious security concern already in existence, more disturbing part is that there is an organised influx of illegal immigrants from Myanmar through agents and touts facilitating illegal immigrant Rohingyas into India via Benapole-Haridaspur and Hilli (West Bengal), Sonamura (Tripura), Kolkata and Guwahati," the affidavit said and stressed that situation is seriously harming national security of the country."

The Centre also said that the number of illegal Rohingyas is around 40,000 and their continuance in India has serious national security ramifications and threats.

"India has open and porous borders with Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Myanmar etc and had an easily navigable sea route with Pakistan as well as Sri Lanka making it vulnerable to a continuous threat of an influx of illegal immigration and resultant problems arising therefrom," the Centre also said.