Acting on an intelligence tip-off, the city police on Friday took into custody a group of 26 suspected illegal migrants from Bangladesh from a house at Pathalam in Eloor.
Mohammed Halim, proprietor of Al-Ameen Plastics, a successful firm dealing in junk, and Halim’s son-in-law Mohammed Aslam, 25, have been on the radar of intelligence agencies for a while. Sources said the duo, along with the others employed by them, had been staying at Pathalam for nearly five years.
They were doing brisk business, shipping scrap and discarded glass bottles to places as far as New Delhi. Intelligence sources said 15 of the 26 people in custody were of Bangladeshi origin while the rest were from West Bengal.
On questioning, Halim claimed to be a native of Delhi, which sources said was ascertained untrue. Police sources said the suspects were not conversant in any language other than Bengali. At the time of going to press, they were being questioned by a team of police and intelligence officials with the help of an employee of Fertilisers and Chemicals Travancore Limited (FACT), a native of West Bengal.
“It is a case of illegal migration, as they don’t seem to have roots in India. We are questioning them further to rule out there’s nothing more to it. No arrest has been recorded so far pending questioning,” City Police Commissioner K.G. James told The Hindu .
According to an unofficial estimate, Kochi has an illegal Bangladeshi migrant population of approximately 5,000 people. It is tough to distinguish them from Bengalis working in the city’s unorganised labour sector.
