A prominent voice of the African national community in Bengaluru, Bosco Kaweesi, was arrested and deported to his home country Uganda, for alleged overstaying, human trafficking, forging documents for other African nationals to overstay, and blackmailing them, among a litany of other allegations.
Bosco Kaweesi, who came to India in 2004 as a student, had remained in the country, married a local Siddi woman in the State and turned into an activist for the cause of African nationals. He served as legal advisor to All Africa Students’ Association, Bengaluru, and was president of Pan-African Federation and Students’ Union, India. He had emerged as a prominent voice of the community during attacks on members of the community in the city.
Probing several complaints, the city police and the Ministry of Home Affairs arrested him on July 19, detained him at the detention centre and deported him to Uganda on July 27. The police said they had initiated proceedings to ensure there is a permanent ban imposed on Mr. Kaweesi from coming to India.
“Kaweesi had been helping several overstaying African nationals procure forged documents for money, but later was also blackmailing them. He had collected money from many foreign nationals and cheated them too,” a police official said. He was himself overstaying since August 6, 2005, served a six-month jail sentence for the same in 2006 and had failed to report to the authorities ever since, investigations have now revealed.
Ironically, he had also participated in several community meetings with the city police and had emerged as one of the liaison persons for the city police to work with the community.
The police have also alleged that Kaweesi was involved in human trafficking. During a raid on his house following his arrest, they claimed to have recovered 26 passports of African nationals, of which 24 are of women and 2 men — 18 from his home country Uganda, 5 Nigerian, one each from Tanzania, Kenya and Sudan. The police said 24 passports have expired and all of them are presently untraceable. “We appeal to all the 26 individuals to report to Banaswadi Police Station and collect their passports. On our part, we are trying to track them down,” said Bhimashankar Guled, DCP (East).
City Police Commissioner C.H. Pratap Reddy, addressing a press conference on Friday, advised all foreign nationals in the city to not hand over their passport and visa documents to any individual.
Case against house owner
The Banaswadi police have booked the landlord of the rented house in which Bosco Kaweesi was staying under The Foreigners Act, 1946, for not collecting and verifying his travel documents. Mr. Reddy said as per law, landlords have to collect travel documents of any foreign national before giving their portions on rent, failing which the city police would book cases against them.
