At least 24 Rohingya refugees, including women and children, who could not produce valid travel documents, have been arrested by railway police personnel in Assam in the past 48-hours.
The arrests come days after the Union Home Ministry told the Parliament that all foreigners staying in India without travel documents, including Rohingyas, would be considered as a "threat to national security."
Nine were detained at Guwahati Railway Station on Sunday morning from the Agartala-Deogarh Express train while 15 were arrested from Badarpur railway station in South Assam's Karimganj district on Saturday when they were on their way to Agartala in Tripura. Police said the 15 were returning from Aligarh in Uttar Pradesh. "They were planning to go back to Rohingya refugee camps in Bangladesh. They probably would have crossed the India-Bangladesh border through Agartala," said a Government Railway Police officer.
Karimganj shares a border with both Bangladesh and Tripura.
Amanullah, a man from Jammu was accompanying the nine arrested persons in Guwahati. Police said they produced some refugee certificates of United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) but those were found to be fake.
All 24 have been booked for entering India without valid travel documents.
Rohingyas had fled the Rakhine state of Myanmar following ethnic cleansing and more than 7 lakh are taking shelter at refugee camps in Bangladesh's Cox's Bazar.
Assam and Tripura are often used as a route by many such refugees who travel to cities in the rest of India in search of jobs.
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