5 lakh Indians work illegally
Dhaka to raise the issue at home secretary-level meet in New Delhi
Staff Correspondent
About half a million Indian nationals, who enter Bangladesh with tourist visas, are illegally working in various sectors and remitting millions of takas to India through hundi, revealed an intelligence agency report.
They overstay, work without permission and evade income tax, depriving the government of a huge amount of revenue, said the report recently submitted to the Ministry of Home Affairs.
Most of them come with tourist visas for a week or two but stay for months or years, said an official of the intelligence agency.
Officials at the home ministry said the issue would be raised at the home secretary-level meeting of the two neighbouring nations beginning in New Delhi on Thursday.
The issue will be one of the top agenda of the two-day meeting, a senior official of the ministry told New Age on Tuesday.
According to the report, thousands of Indian nationals come to Bangladesh on tourist visas and get employed in various jobs in the export processing zones, garment factories, information technology companies, English medium schools and textiles and fisheries industries.
They do not bother to seek permission for work or extend their visas, said the official of the intelligence agency that prepared the report after months of investigation.
Thousands of nationals from other countries also stay and work in Bangladesh the same way, but the home ministry officials time and again have failed to ascertain their number.
The home ministry official said Bangladesh would take up the issue strongly in the New Delhi meeting.
The Indians coming with tourist visas will have to seek permission from the Bangladesh government for working here, and pay income tax, he said. As they work illegally, they send their earned money illegally to India.
A 12-meeber delegation led by the home secretary, Md Abdul Karim, will leave Dhaka today to attend the meeting which will also discuss a number of contentious issues.
Fencing on the border by Indian, cross-border smuggling, the bid to push in Bangla-speaking Indian nationals, unprovoked firing and killing of innocent Bangladeshis by jawans of the Indian Border Security Force are the issues expected to dominate the discussion.
Implementing the 1974 Land Border Agreement signed by the two neighbours to exchange enclaves and hand over Bangladeshi criminals staying in India will also come up in the meeting.
Sources in the home ministry said the security aspect of the Dhaka-Kolkata express train service would be given due importance in the meeting since the issue is yet to be resolved.
The director-general of the Bangladesh Rifles, director-general of the foreign ministry, senior officials of the home ministry and Joint River Commission and additional inspector-general of police will accompany the home secretary to the eight meeting. Such a meeting is supposed to be held every year.
The last home secretary-level meeting was held in Dhaka in April 2006.
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