Thaindian News

Agartala, April 13 (IANS) Six Myanmarese men were arrested for illegally entering India from Bangladesh and were sent to 14 days judicial custody Wednesday, police here said. The arrested men said they had crossed over in search of jobs and complained of untold harassment by the Myanmarese authorities.

“Acting on a tip-off, security forces arrested the Myanmarese nationals from a market at Bishramganj in western Tripura Tuesday night. On Wednesday, the detainees were presented before a local court, which sent them to 14 days’ judicial custody,” a police official told reporters.

The official quoting the Myanmarese citizens, aged 20 years to 40 years, said: “In search of jobs, they illegally crossed over to western Tripura through the unfenced Sonamura border from Bangladesh and attempted to leave for elsewhere in India via Guwahati by train.”

Muqtar Ahmad, one of the detainees, told police: “The authorities in Myanmar have remained indifferent towards the people living in the hilly areas bordering India and Bangladesh.

“Occasionally, the Myanmarese Army and security forces have committed atrocities on a section of nationals, especially Rohingya Muslim communities.”

“Following starvation and torture, we recently escaped from Myanmar to northeastern Bangladesh, from where we came to India,” Ahmad said.

“We are not allowed to travel from one village to another within our country without permission from the army and we are not even allowed to marry without the permission of the authorities,” he added.

Over 50,000 Myanmarese have been living in different parts of neighbouring Mizoram, bordering Myanmar and Bangladesh.

Mizoram with the approval of the union home ministry has given entry passes and temporary stay permits to these Myanmarese, who work in jewellery shops, vehicular service centres, shops, restaurants and cloth factories and at construction works.

Since the mid-1990s, over 225,000 Myanmar nationals have been sheltering in the Teknaf region in Cox’s Bazar district of southeastern Bangladesh.

India’s four northeastern states of Manipur, Mizoram, Nagaland and Arunachal Pradesh together share a 1,643-km unfenced border with Myanmar.