West Bengal Government Directs Police to Hand Over Illegal Immigrants to BSF for Deportation, Says Weekly Report to CMO to Be Sent

Kolkata: West Bengal chief minister Suvendu Adhikari on Thursday said the state police have been instructed to hand over illegal immigrants who do not fall under the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) to the Border Security Force (BSF) for deportation to Bangladesh, instead of handing them over to the courts after apprehending them for infiltration purposes. He also ordered the police to send a weekly report on such posts.

“A law has been enacted in the state to hand over infiltrators to BSF at the Bangladesh border instead of sending them to courts. The Commissioner of Police and the Railway Protection Force have been expressly asked not to send illegal Bangladeshi immigrants who do not fall under the CAA and are apprehended at Howrah station to the courts,” said Mr. Adhikari, who was chairing an administrative meeting in Howrah during the visit.

“More precisely, after feeding the infiltrators thoroughly, they will make arrangements to send them directly to Bongaon on the Petrapole border or to Basirhat border post. The numbers of these infiltrators have to be sent to the Prime Minister’s Office through the director general of police every week.” Senior railway officials and Shibpur BJP MLA Rudranil Ghosh also attended the meeting.

Mr. Adhikari’s announcement came a day after his government handed over land to BSF to fence a 27 km stretch along the India-Bangladesh border and implemented the central government directive on deportation of infiltrators. The CM also claimed that the Howrah Municipal Corporation will see an election soon after a gap of almost 13 years. He stated that a crackdown has been created against illegal activities in the city on the other side of the Hooghly River.

Meanwhile, one of the three accused arrested by the state police in connection with the murder of Mr Adhikari’s personal assistant Chandranath Rath was released following a court order on mistaken identity earlier in the day. The suspect, Raj Singh, was arrested before the CBI took over the investigation. He was a resident of Ballia in Uttar Pradesh and was in CBI custody.

However, the central agency found that Raj was not already involved in the case but was caught in confusion over the identity of another accused with a similar name. He prayed to the Barasat Court in North 24 Parganas for his release. He was later released.