Thirty-three Bangladeshi men returned home yesterday after languishing about three and a half years in a Jammu and Kashmir jail in India.
Indian police handed them over to their Bangladeshi counterparts at Benapole check-post in south-western Jessore district yesterday. They all hail from Feni and Habiganj districts. The Indian police arrested them while going to Pakistan illegally in 2008.The officer in-charge of Benapole immigration police said the Bangladeshi nationals have been brought back home with travel permits.
He said the process to bring them back began following recent talks between Home Minister Shahara Khatun and her Indian counterpart P Chidambaram in New Delhi.
A returnee, Abdul Munnaf, said manpower agents lured them into a trap promising to provide them with good jobs in Pakistan and took 15,000 taka from each to send them there in late 2008. They entered India through Kurigram border in their journey. But to their misfortune, Indian police arrested them while passing through Jammu and Kashmir, he said.
Another returnee, Ahsan Ullah, said several hundred Bangladeshis have long been passing a miserable life in Jammu and Kashmir jail.
Meanwhile, nine illegal Bangladeshi migrants, including a woman and two children, were arrested in Assams capital Guwahati yesterday, state police said. The nine Bangladeshis were detained by the Government Railway Police (GRP) as they did not have any valid document to enter India.
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