Twenty-seven Bangladeshi nationals have been arrested for illegally staying in the port city of Kochi in the southernmost state of Kerala.
The Anti-Terrorism Squad of the Indian Central Government Police and members of the state police arrested the Bangladeshis in an overnight operation on Thursday (January 30).
Indian news agency ANI confirmed this information in a report on Friday (January 31).
Kochi is a city in the Ernakulam district of Kerala. District Chief Police Officer Vaibhav Saxena told reporters at a briefing on Friday that the joint forces arrested 54 people in overnight raids in Kochi city yesterday. After initial interrogation at the police station, we came to know that 27 of them are Bangladeshi citizens.
Vaibhav Saxena said Bangladeshi national identity cards and birth certificates were seized from many of the 27 accused, while Bangladeshi passports were also recovered from them. But none of them could show any valid documents related to residence in India.
A case has been registered against the arrested persons, the Kerala police official said.
Drives are being conducted against Bangladeshis living illegally in different states and cities of India. The operation is being called ‘Operation Clean’. As part of this, the Maharashtra Police arrested two Bangladeshi nationals from Versova, the capital of India’s western state of Maharashtra, in the early hours of Friday.