Illegal Bangladeshi migrants continue to flee India under CAA-NRC panic

Amidst apprehension that the Bangladeshi nationals living illegally without any documents in India may face action, they have started fleeing back to their country.

According to the DG, BGB, Major General Shafeenul Islam, the infiltration in Bangladesh has increased manyfold. “In the last one year, as many as 972 persons entered Bangladesh. Of this total 972, 445 entered in the last two months – November and December. Those apprehended by the Bangladesh border security force have been identified as Bangladeshi nationals. They were living in India without any legal and valid documents. Most of them are saying that they had gone to India in search of work. A number of them had been staying in Bangalore,” Islam said.

He, however, said that the relation between the Border Security Force (BSF) of India and Border Guards Bangladesh (BGB) is very cordial and the present figures of infiltration cannot be attributed to the situation prevailing in India due to NRC and CAA.

On the other hand, sources in BSF say that infiltration has been a long-standing issue. While people try and enter from Bangladesh, some Bangladeshi nationals who enter India try to go back from time to time. This has increased drastically in the last two months.

Sources in BSF added, “There have been attempts to re-enter Bangladesh in the last two months, far more than the normal numbers. We have arrested many while trying to re-enter into Bangladesh and they have been handed over to the local police. Specific cases have been registered too.”

Meanwhile, Bangladesh, which is already housing several thousand Rohingya refugees, is not taking this re-migration lightly. Out of concern that there might be a sudden population explosion, Bangladesh Telecom Regulatory Commission had recently suspended the mobile network in a 1 km border area between Bangladesh and India.

However, severing the mobile network connection affected around one crore people in Bangladesh, living across 36 districts, as people inside the border were affected too. Soon, the orders of the mobile network shutdown were withdrawn and restored after a day.