2 min readAgartalaMar 17, 2024 05:17 PM IST
First published on: Mar 17, 2024 at 05:17 PM IST
Three Rohingya men were arrested from Badharghat railway station in Agartala on Sunday while they were trying to board a train to Hyderabad, officials said.
The arrested men were identified as Myanmar natives Abdul Rashid, 24, Mohammed Yusuf, 23, and Mohammed Hamid, 23. A feature phone was recovered from their possession.
Speaking to reporters, Government Railway Police Force officer in-charge Tapas Das said, “We were checking trains in the morning as part of routine procedure when we noticed a few people acting suspiciously. We detained them near the main entrance to the platforms and questioned the men, during which they revealed they were Rohingya.”
The men said they came to Tripura in a bid to enter Bangladesh but failed to do so due to heightened security in the light of the upcoming Parliamentary elections and were trying to leave Tripura, the officer said. They also revealed that they had entered India via West Bengal eight years ago and had gone to Hyderabad.
“They were arrested soon and a case was registered with the Government Railway Police station,” the officer informed.
The Border Security Force (BSF) shared in January this year that they had arrested 744 people for illegally crossing the international border in 2023, including 112 illegal Rohingya migrants, 337 Bangladeshi nationals and 295 Indians under various operations.
The number of people detained for illegally crossing the border in Tripura has increased compared to previous years. In 2022, the BSF held 369 individuals, including 59 Rohingya, 160 Indians and 150 Bangladeshi nationals, along Tripura’s 856 km-long International Border with Bangladesh, many parts of which remain unfenced due to local land disputes and demarcation-related issues.
In October last year, Tripura Chief Minister Dr Manik Saha identified Rohingya infiltration, illegal drug menace, threat of anti-socials, crime syndicates and road accidents among major challenges to the law and order situation in the state and said the police were working 24×7 to provide safety to citizens.
The Rohingya people hail from Myanmar’s Rakhine state but have reportedly faced persecution at the hands of that country’s military since the late 1940s. In 2016, the military cracked down against various Rohingya villages in the wake of a deadly attack on a Myanmarese Army post by rebels.
The number of people detained for illegally crossing the border in Tripura has increased compared to previous years. 
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