Illegal Bangla migrants make BSF job harder

NEW DELHI: It appears to be a case of infiltration through the front door. In a startling revelation, the BSF said as many as 1.5 lakh Bangladeshis entered the country in the past five years through the integrated checkposts on the border on valid travel documents only to go missing later.

All these Bangladeshis had come armed with passports and duly stamped visas, but stayed on illegally after expiry of validity of their travel papers. Till date, these 1.5 lakh Bangladeshis remain untraced, BSF director general AK Mitra told a news conference here on Tuesday, ahead of the force’s 41st Raising Day on December 1. “Tracing these Bangladeshis staying on illegally is not in our jurisdiction... our role is limited to the border,” he clarified.

The BSF chief, however, said illegal immigration on the eastern border had become a “little more serious”, now that economic factors were not the sole driving force. “Along with the economic migrants, some of those who are coming in are probably involved in terrorism,” he said, citing media reports as well as investigation of offences in the hinterland which has thrown up evidence of the terrorists having used the Bangladesh route to get into the country.

“Earlier, the focus used to be Kashmir. Now, it has shifted to the east, which I personally feel is going to be the problem area for tomorrow,” the BSF chief admitted.

Significantly, the LeT/Jaish fidayeen who carried out the Varanasi blasts earlier this year as well as the attack on the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore had come in from Bangladesh. More recently, the powerful blast on the Haldibari-Siliguri express train last week was allegedly a handiwork of banned Bangladeshi terrorist group Jama'at ul Mujhaideen Bangladesh (JMB), with both KLO and ULFA having acted as local conduits.

“The use of Indo-Bangla border as an infiltration route has made illegal immigration problem serious,” the BSF DG said.

Even as Mr Mitra explained that a complete end to illegal immigration from Bangladesh was impossible as “a certain degree of porosity of the border would always remain”, given the riverine areas, culverts, ponds as well as the fence running through the border villages, he said it did not mean that the BSF could not plug the gaps.

“The use of Indo-Bangla border as an infiltration route by the terrorists had made the illegal immigration problem serious... that is why we are deploying more forces on the border,” the BSF DG said.

The BSF, which used to have only 50 battalions manning the Indo-Bangladesh border till recently, now has 66 battalions guarding it. Apart from fencing the 4,095-stretch of the Indo-Bangla border targetted to be completed by March 2007, the BSF is ensuring fencing of islands in the Brahmaputra that are being occupied by the Bangladeshis in order to sneak into Assam.

Sharing the immediate threat perceptions on the Indo-Bangla border, the BSF chief said with elections in the neighbouring country round the corner, there are intelligence reports of impending pre-poll violence, mostly targetted against the minorities. This, according to sources, may lead to a mass egress of Bangladeshi minorities into our territory. According to the BSF’s own assessment, this influx could come closer to the election or just after the poll. “We are prepared for every contingency... at the moment, all we need is to step up vigil at the eastern border,” a reassuring Mr Mitra said.