India pushes 76 into Bangladesh

Seventy-six Indian Muslims were pushed into Bangladesh by the Indian Border Security Force (BSF) through the Sharsha border yesterday.

The deportees, including 27 women and 28 children, were held by the Bangladesh Rifles (BDR) from Dhopakhola while travelling from the border on a bus.

The deportees told police that they were brought from different parts of India including Mumbai where they had been living for several decades. They were assembled at Goga opposite Sharsha and the BSF pushed them into Bangladesh early yesterday morning.

BDR officials said the deportees speak Bangla and were born in India.

Meantime, West Bengal police claimed that they had arrested 164 illegal Bangladeshi immigrants, including 84 women and children, in Jhargram in West Medinipur and Chagachha in Howrah yesterday, the BBC Radio reported last night.

The deputy inspector general (DIG) of police of the state, Narayan Ghosh, claimed that the arrestees had come from Mumbai and other places in Maharashtra.

DIG Ghosh told BBC that the police arrested 77 Bangladeshis from the railway station of Jhargram in West Medinipur on Tuesday night, as they had failed to show any documents. He claimed that the arrested people said that some brokers had brought them from Bangladesh.

He further said another 87 Bangladeshis were arrested from Chagachha in Howrah. He said this group also told the police that two or three brokers had brought them from Bangladesh.

Ghosh said that they were returning to Bangladesh from Mumbai, as they could not find any employment opportunity there.

He said they might be pushed back to Bangladesh after their trial.

Meanwhile, an official of the deputy high commission of Bangladesh in Kolkata told BBC that the state administration did not inform them about any arrest of Bangladeshis. "There were no illegal Bangladeshi immigrants in India," he added.