252 illegal B’desh immigrants held

The special branch of the Mumbai police arrested 252 illegal Bangladeshi immigrants from Thane on Wednesday. The arrested Banglad-eshis include 56 women and 64 children. While the women worked as domestic helps, the men were found to be working as daily wage labourers. With these raids, the total number of arrested Bangladeshi illegal immigrants went up to 1,308 in 2012. On December 1, raids were conducted in different parts of the city when 57 Bangladeshi illegal immigrants were apprehended, the police said, adding that during its interrogation, it was revealed that many more from their country lived in the Thane district without valid documents. “Accordingly, raids were conducted in the next five days, when 195 illegal immigrants were nabbed from the Thane district’s Mira Road, Naigaon, Bhayander, Nalasopara and Kharghar areas,” said deputy commissioner of police (special branch) Sanjay Shintre. As per legal procedure, the accused will be deported to their country, the police said adding that as of now 200 of these have been deported this year. Deportation is a long process. Once formalities in a particular case are completed, the batch is taken to Kolkata. From there, BSF escorts them to the Bangladesh border, the police added. Another officer pointed out that employing them at meager wages should also be seen as a human rights violation. “The contractors give them lower wages than Indians and they also accept it as they come to India because of lack of opportunities in their countries. The companies are not generally involved in it, but the contractors who are outsourced the job of handling the labourers exploit them,” he said. The officer said that many a times they also carry bogus election cards that they buy from West Bengal as their identity proof. These cards bear a false name and are of poor quality.