The anti-terrorism squad and the anti-human trafficking unit of the Palghar police on Wednesday morning arrested 22 Bangladeshi nationals who were staying illegally in Rajodi village in Palghar district.
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According to the police, 12 men and 10 women were arrested from a temporary settlement near Pardhi Wadi. They have been charged under the Indian Passport Act 1920 and the Foreign Act 1946 for entering the country without passports and building temporary huts for settlement.
“We received a tip-off that several Bangladeshi nationals are living in the jurisdiction of Arnala police station by constructing temporary huts. We raided their residences at 1.30 a.m and arrested 22 people who could not present any citizenship proof,” police inspector Bhaskar Pukale, in-charge, anti-human trafficking unit, said.
“We have found that the accused are from different districts in Bangladesh. Some have illegally settled in the area for the last few months while some have been living there for years,” he said. The accused were in the age group of 19 to 52.
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According to assistant police inspector Mansingh Patil from the anti-terrorism squad, when they raided the village, the resident began showing them one or two proofs of identify that proved their citizenship. “However, the 22 accused could not present a single document. We also checked their call logs and found regular calls made on Bangladeshi phone numbers using various mobile applications.”
He also said, “Many of them insisted that they were Indians and their documents were kept at their home towns but after interrogating them till the morning, all of them confessed that they were from Bangladesh.”
The arrests come three days after Maharashtra Navnirman Sena chief Raj Thackeray announced his support to the Citizenship Amendment Act and the National Register of Citizens, and said that the country could not sustain if illegal immigrants from neighbouring countries continued to reside here.