Activists say Karnataka alone has around 4 lakh Bangladeshi nationals eking out a living by working odd jobs in the state.
Published Aug 11, 2023 | 9:30 AM ⚊ Updated Aug 11, 2023 | 9:30 AM
Bangladeshi picture - Sourced
The Bengaluru City Police have said they are on the lookout for 40 Bangladeshi nationals who have illegally immigrated into the country through the porous borders of West Bengal with the neighbouring country of Bangladesh.
The cops added that these foreign nationals have been working odd jobs without valid documents — some of them since 2011 — in Karnataka and its neighbouring states.
The Whitefield Division’s Bellandur police have launched a manhunt for the 40 foreigners based on a complaint from Police Inspector (PI) Gajendra Singh Chauhan of the National Investigating Agency (NIA) in Uttar Pradesh.
A team of NIA officials on Monday, 7 August, picked up a Bangladeshi national — identified as Khaleel Chaprasi — who was staying at the Munekolala labour shanty near Bellandur in the Mahadevapura area of Southeast Bengaluru.
He was detained for questioning as a part of their investigation into a different case, which was not disclosed to the police.
However, during his questioning, the NIA officials learnt that Khaleel was not involved in the case, but had information about a racket of getting Bangladeshi countrymen to enter India illegally through the porous borders for ₹20,000 per person.
According to the Bellandur police, Khaleel — along with his father-in-law Abdul Qadir — had come to India in 2011 and were involved in running placement agencies across prominent cities in the country.
They were supplying manpower for posts of security guards, domestic help, and construction labourers.
Abdul Qadir had a valid passport, but was involved in getting Bangladeshi nationals illegally trafficked into India, said the police sources.
The NIA sleuths also shared information about one more Bangladeshi national, named Mohammed Zahid, who was working with Khaleel and Qadir.
Zahid came to Bengaluru a month ago, and was contemplating returning to Bangladesh as nothing was working out for him, the police said.
Based on the NIA official’s complaint, the Bellandur police arrested the trio and booked them under appropriate sections of the Passport Act as well as the Foreigners Act.
The NIA sleuths also shared a list of contacts of around 40 Bangladeshi nationals with the Bellandur police. The central probe agency said these people were at present working in Kerala, Chennai in Tamil Nadu, and Bengaluru Rural, and nearby districts in Karnataka.
“We have been given a list of 40 names, taken from the arrested accused persons’ phone contacts, and are in the process of tracing them and verifying their documents,” a senior police officer from the Bellandur Police Station told South First.
Meanwhile, activist R Kaleem Ullah from Swaraj India, who fights for the rights of labourers who have come for their livelihood from West Bengal to Bengaluru, told South First that there were Bangladeshi nationals living in almost every state in India.
“I have travelled throughout the country to help voice the rights of labourers from West Bengal, and have found numerous Bangladeshi nationals who live among them who claim that they are third-generation residents,” he recounted.
“We have found Bangladeshi nationals mostly settled in many other BJP-ruled states in the country. Even the Bangladeshi nationals who live in Karnataka prefer BJP belts, like Munekolala in Bellandur, which is a part of the Mahadevapura Assembly constituency, which has a BJP MLA,” added the activist.
“I have seen Bangladeshis who do not hesitate to tell even the police that they are Bangladeshis but they do have valid documents, such as Aadhaar cards and voters ID, which are issued by the local elected representatives who consider them as their vote bank,” R Kaleem Ullah told South First.
Dr Venkatesh Mourya, a former member of the Dr Ambedkar Foundation and a member of the BJP SC Morcha National Executive Committee, claimed that in the three constituencies — Shantinagar, Mahadevapura and KR Puram — in Bengaluru alone, there were nearly 40,000 Bangladeshis who were voters.
“Voter IDs have been issued to them due to vote-bank politics. This has been happening since 2014 and through 2018,” he claimed.
“They embedded themselves into the system: Men are working as security guards, construction labourers, garbage collectors, and rag pickers, while women are mostly domestic help and construction labourers,” Mourya told South First.
