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Monday, May 30, 2005

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National

Illegal stay of Bangladeshis in Mumbai

Prachi Pinglay

MUMBAI: A Mumbai court recently sentenced 16 Bangladeshis to two-month imprisonment and ordered them to pay Rs. 2,000 for illegal stay. Although Bangladeshis have been getting arrested, tried and deported regularly, this is the first time that so many of them have been caught and convicted in one-go.

A Maharashtra Home Department says the number of Bangladeshis apprehended in Mumbai in 2004 is a mere 626. Special Branch figures show that fewer than 5,000 have been deported in the last 10 years. Since 1995, the number of arrests has been under 1,000, the highest at 897 in 1996, and the lowest at 266 in 2001.

No records

When this reporter visited the Byculla station in central Mumbai, from where the maximum number of illegal immigrants, 94, was caught last year, the duty officer said the police did not have records of the arrests and it was the Special Branch that dealt with this issue.

At the Malwani station in northwest Mumbai, the officers said they had not arrested any Bangladeshi in the last two-and-a-half years. ``Everything is done by the Special Branch. We are not informed, nor do we participate in any operations.''

Malwani, where many Bangladeshis and Bengali-speaking Muslims were living, saw one of the biggest slum demolitions last year.

Difficult to differentiate

Asked how the local police made a distinction between a Bengali and a Bangladeshi, a policeman at the station said: ``It is very difficult to make out the difference. They look just like Indians, speak pretty much like Bengalis.''

A senior inspector said it would impossible to verify their identity if they mentioned some village in West Bengal. ``We are short-staffed. I barely have anyone under me to do routine work. If someone asks me to verify someone's identity in a far-away suburb, I will not be able to do it. The same way, some police official sitting in a far-off chowky may not be able to send his force kilometres away to verify if someone lived there.''

Bipin Bihari, Additional Commissioner of Special Branch-I, says his branch has a dedicated department to deal with the problem of Bangladeshis. Asked why the local stations are not involved in catching and deporting illegal immigrants, Mr. Bihari said: ``We are a specialised unit. But we can always involve the local police.''

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