Kolkata, March 19: The Kolkata Police have issued lookout notices against 69 Bangladeshi infiltrators who procured Indian passports by furnishing fake documents after illegally entering the country through porous borders at different points in time.
The lookout notices have been issued in apprehension that these 69 Bangladeshi infiltrators are still staying in hideouts in the country, especially in West Bengal, and might escape to other countries.
The move comes amid the busting of fake passport rackets in the state and their identities getting revealed during the investigations. Accordingly, the concerned departments, including the immigration, customs, and different border guard agencies in the country, have been alerted.
The agencies have been provided with details of these 69 Bangladeshi infiltrators against whom such lookout notices have been issued, sources from the city police said. The investigating officials suspect that these illegal Bangladeshi infiltrators might be of two categories.
The first category includes those who are basically “economic refugees” and their intention to come to India was to look for avenues to earn their livelihoods. The second category, as apprehended by the investigating officials, might include those with links with underground terror groups operating from Bangladesh and might have entered India with nefarious motives, including the setting up of sleeper cells in West Bengal.
Last week, the Kolkata Police submitted a charge sheet at a lower court in Kolkata about the fake Indian passport rackets operating from West Bengal. In the charge sheet, a total of 130 individuals have been named, and out of this, 120 are Bangladeshi residents and the remaining are Indian nationals.
The main charges against the Bangladeshi nationals are that they created fake Indian passports by furnishing forged documents and paying huge money. The charges against the accused Indian nationals are that they played the role of facilitators for arranging fake Indian identity documents, including passports for these illegal Bangladeshi infiltrators.
The cops investigating the fake Indian identity documents rackets have identified a specific pattern in the operations of such rackets in this particular crime. In the charge sheet, Abdul Hai, the retired assistant inspector who was earlier attached to the security control organisation of Kolkata Police and was arrested this year in connection with the fake passport racket in West Bengal, was named as an accused conspirator.
The main charge against him was that he cleared police verifications for at least 52 applications for fake passports reportedly against payment of cash.
IANS