Bengal's Malda, Murshidabad Get First 'Illegal' Bangladeshi, Rohinya Holding Centres - Report

(MENAFN- Live Mint) Two days after the state Home and Hill Affairs Department's Foreigners' Branch directed all district administrations to establish“holding centres” to house apprehended “foreigners” or those awaiting deportation or repatriation, Malda and Murshidabad in West Bengal have become the first districts to follow the order. The detainees either entered India illegally or lack valid documents of their citizenship.

While Malda opened a holding centre which currently houses nine suspected Bangladeshis or Rohingyas, Murshidabad holds three foreigners, according to a Times of India report. The detainees have been not been arrested under Section 14 of Foreigners Act, 1946, but nationalities of these inmates are being determined.

If they are verified as Bangladeshi immigrants, they will be sent back within 30 days.

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The Malda holding centre has been set up at Chandan Park in English Bazar and is currently the only such facility in Malda district. It started functioning after nine people – including three women and six minors – were brought there from Gazole's Pandua area on Sunday, May 24.

The facility has been placed under layered security cover with CCTV surveillance, deployment of 12 police personnel, civil defence staff and civic volunteers, along with arrangements for food and upkeep, an officer said.

A senior district police officers told PTI that the“holding centre has started functioning. At present, nine Bangladeshi nationals are being housed there. Necessary verification and legal procedures are being carried out. The detainees are being treated in accordance with prescribed legal norms.”

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In Murshidabad, the holding centre has been set up in Lalgola which currently houses three people. According to the report, the detained persons were held near the border while they were trying to get in using fake passports and other documents.

Last week, Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari announced that infiltrators detained by state police would be handed over directly to the BSF for deportation instead of being routed through prolonged legal processes.

At a meeting with senior BSF officers where land was handed over for fencing work along stretches of the Bangladesh border, Adhikari indicated that the state's anti-infiltration agenda had entered the implementation phase.

He had maintained that those outside the purview of the Citizenship (Amendment) Act would be treated as illegal entrants. "Those who are outside the purview of the CAA are infiltrators and will be arrested by the state police and handed over to the BSF," Adhikari had said.

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