Thaindian News

Agartala, March 4 (IANS) Ten Myanmarese nationals, including two women, were arrested after they illegally sneaked into Tripura from Bangladesh, police said here Friday. A court has sent them to 14 days of judicial custody.

Deputy Superintendent of Police Harimohan Das said: “Acting on a tip-off, the security forces nabbed the Myanmarese citizens from a railway station at Jogendranagar Thursday night.

“The foreign nationals illegally crossed over to western Tripura from Bangladesh and attempted to leave for central India via Guwahati (in Assam) by train,” Das told IANS.

The accused told the police that the authorities in Myanmar have unleashed atrocities on a section of nationals especially Rohingya Muslim communities.

“We have recently escaped from these violent tortures and came to northeastern Bangladesh from where we came to India,” Hasan Ali, one of the accused, told the police.

“The minority Rohingya Muslims have been fleeing Myanmar to evade atrocities by the members of the rival community. We are being denied even the most basic rights and needs,” Ali 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.”

The foreign nationals were brought before a local court which sent them to 14 days jail custody. “After the jail custody, we will send them back to Bangladesh,” the police official said.

Another police official told reporters: “The Myanmarese nationals recently fled from the refugee camps at Teknaf region in Cox’s Bazar district in southeast Bangladesh. They entered India through Sonamura border in western Tripura.

Earlier last year, seven Myanmarese nationals, including four women, were arrested in Agartala for trying to illegally enter the country.

They too had fled from the refugee camps at Teknaf region of Cox’s Bazar.

Meanwhile, the number of Myanmarese living in different parts of Mizoram has now been estimated at around 50,000.

The Mizoram government has given entry passes and temporary stay permits to Myanmarese, who works in jewellery shops, vehicular service centres, shops, restaurants and cloth factories and at construction works.

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

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