RPF arrest 9 Rohingyas at Agartala railway station

The arrested Rohingyas were about to catch a train for travelling outside the Northeast, in search of shelter and jobs, police said

The Railway Protection Force (RPF) personnel arrested nine Rohingya refugees from a train in Tripura capital Agartala on Thursday.

The Rohingyas, who had illegally entered Tripura through the porous stretch of Indo-Bangladesh border in Tripura, were caught during a drive by the RPF for detection of illegal migrants at Agartala railway station.

The five women and four men were caught by a joint team of RPF and Tripura police. "On interrogation, they could not produce any valid documents and later confessed that they were from Bangladesh and Rohingyas of Myanmar origin," said Sabyasachi De, the chief public relations officer of Northeast Frontier Railway (NFR).

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They were handed over to Government Railway Police, Tripura for further legal action, De said. "the RPF staff deployed at stations and trains are very vigilant and keep a close eye on illegal migrants and suspected persons," he said.

They were about to catch a train for travelling outside the Northeast, in search of shelter and jobs, police said.

Thousands of Rohingyas fled Rakhaine state of Myanmar following ethnic clashes between the ethnic Buddhists and Islamic Rohingyas since 1997. They have been taking shelter in Cox's Bazar in Bangladesh. Some of them have entered India through Indo-Myanmar borders in Mizoram and Manipur and India-Bangladesh border in Tripura.