TN Police's crackdown on illegal Bangladeshi nationals

Chennai, Oct 7 : The Special Investigation Team (SIT) of the Tamil Nadu Police is on the trail for Bangladeshi nationals staying in various parts of the state masquerading as Bengali workers.

The state police headquarters has formed a special team to investigate this after central intelligence agencies gave inputs on several Bangladeshi nationals with poor credentials finding safe haven in Tamil Nadu.

As part of this move, police arrested four Bangladeshi nationals from the Namakkal district of the state on Saturday.

Police acted on a specific tip-off from central intelligence agencies and on questioning them it was found that they did not have any proper documents with them except for one who had a valid passport. The one with the passport was sent back to Bangladesh while the rest have been remanded in Puzhal Central Prison.

The Tamil Nadu Police Special Investigation team is conducting an investigation in the Tiruppur, Namakkal, Virudhunagar and Thoothukudi areas where a large number of immigrant workers are present.

Sources in the police told IANS that they have got specific leads regarding this and are checking the documents of several Bengali workers in these areas. The police are also questioning the middlemen involved in bringing these workers into various districts of the state.

Namakkal, Virudhunagar, Tiruppur and Thuthukudi districts of Tamil Nadu are home to several industries, including salt making, firecrackers, garments and also fish processing industries. A large number of migrant workers are employed here. This has led to the police focus on these districts to ascertain whether Bangladeshi workers are present in these districts.

The central agencies have tipped the Tamil Nadu Police about some wanted criminals from Bangladesh likely to have slipped into Tamil Nadu.

The central agencies have also tipped off the police about the presence of certain members of an Islamist terror organisation, Hizb ut-Tahrir. The National Investigation Agency (NIA) had conducted raids at 11 places in Tamil Nadu in September and arrested six persons for being part of Hizb ut-Tahrir.