The Central Crime Branch (CCB) on Thursday rounded up 38 foreigners said to be staying illegally or peddling drugs. Fourteen of them were eventually let off.
The “illegal” expats, mostly from African countries, were detected during a search of 65 houses in East and North Bengaluru, and they failed to produce valid documents. In some houses, the CCB found banned drugs that include ecstasy pills and ganja, said Sandeep Patil, Joint Commissioner of Police (Crime).
Police sources said the searches were part of a drive to weed out all expects staying illegally or peddling drugs in the city. The immediate trigger for the search operations was the arrest of a few foreigners in a drug-peddling case. The suspects in that case didn’t have valid documents for their stay in India, the sources added.
The searches were carried out rather elaborately: six assistant commissioners of police, 20 inspectors, 100 head constables and police constables searched the foreigners’ homes from early morning until afternoon.
In all, the searches were carried out in Banaswadi, KR Puram, Hennur, Ramamurthy Nagar, Sampigehalli and Yelahanka.
According to sources, some of the 38 illegal expats neither had the passport nor the visa while a few others had expired visas. They had come to India on tourist, business and student visas.
Police questioned all the 38 foreigners about the purpose of their illegal stay, they current vocation and whether they had applied for visa renewals. Twenty of them were found staying illegally and have been booked under the Foreigners Act. Four others were booked under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act for possessing contraband in commercial quantities. The remaining 14 were let off after questioning, a senior police officer said.
Published 15 July 2021, 19:30 IST