The Cyberabad police are in a quandary about the identity of nearly 70 illegal Bangladeshi immigrants who obtained Indian passports and Aadhaar cards from Bodhan in Nizamabad district.
While three of them -- Sanjib Dutta, Mandal Sandip and Ramu Das -- who were detained by the officials of Bureau of Immigration, and were later arrested by the Cyberabad Police, the rest remain largely unidentified, with their real names, religions, and current residence eluding police.
One Parimal Bain, 31, who had migrated in 2015 from Bangladesh and settled in Bodhan, was identified as the agent who facilitated the process to help the 70-odd illegal immigrants secure Indian passports. After getting to know that three of his ‘men’ were caught, Parimal fled to Kolkata. However, Cyberabad police arrested him from there and was brought to the city.
After working in Kolkata for a year, he came to Bodhan and worked as an assistant to Rai, an ayurvedic doctor there. Later he started his own first-aid clinic near the bus stand, and based on his rental agreement, obtained an Aadhaar card, and later, a passport. A few months later, he got a passport for his brother Gopal Bain as well, who is now somewhere in the Gulf.
When Parimal realised that he can make a quick buck by doing the same for other illegal migrants, he used the help of his agent friend Sameer Roy and Shahnaj Pal alias Sabuj in Kolkata to have Bangladeshi migrants come to Bodhan and obtain Aadhaar cards and Indian passports for them. For at least six months, they worked at local industries, before getting the documents on one particular address in Bodhan. Police also said that all the documents and passports had Parimal’s mobile number.
Quite a large number of these have used Indian passports only to fly away to West Asia and other South-East Asian countries for employment. A total of 17 of them are learnt to be residing in Malaysia, Singapore and certain Gulf nations. About 15 others went abroad and came back to India, but none of these or the others have been identified as to their original identities yet.
Police said that at least half of them must have changed their religion and names on paper, which makes it all the more difficult to trace them. The main reason for their illegal crossing to India and obtaining Indian passports is to get better Visa tenures and easier processing, since Bangladeshi passports get less preference as compared to Indian. All of them are learnt to be daily wage labourers.
SI and ASI held
The two policemen arrested in this case were interrogated about graft, and they confessed to have accepted cash kickbacks for issuing verification clearances for several passports to the same address. SI Malleshwar Rao was found to have been accepting ‘bakshish’ of ₹500 without suspecting these applicants, whereas Anil and was learned to have been taking a bribe of ₹5,000 per applicant at least. The policemen, who had worked in the Special Branch, were not aware that these applicants were illegal migrants, but were under the impression that they are from West Bengal. Now, Malleshwara Rao is working as SI in Siddipet and Anil is working as ASI in Bodhan town.
