Karnataka police take up drive to verify documents of 'migrant labourers'

Following the directions of the Home Minister Araga Jnanendra to verify the documents of the foreign nationals and illegal migrants, the city police have taken up a one-week long drive to verify the documents in all the police station limits.

Commissioner of Police N Shashi Kumar said out of 4,000 labourers verified, 518 labourers who submitted insufficient details were detained for verifying their documents in Mangaluru on Monday morning. Their identity cards like voter's identity and Aadhaar are being verified. The help of bank and revenue officials are also being utilized to cross verify if the police have any doubt on Aadhaar cards and bank passbooks.

Further, call detail records of these labourers are being verified to check whether they have spoken with anyone outside the country. The photo gallery in their mobile phones are also checked if they have any photographs of the railway station or airport.

"The bank accounts are also being verified with the banks and to whom they have transferred the money in the past year. If they have transferred money to someone in Bangladesh or other countries are also being verified," the Commissioner explained.

He said the staff from each police station are verifying the details. Even the place of their work and stay are also being cross verified through map based inputs.

These labourers are from Assam, West Bengal, Bihar, Odisha, Uttar Pradesh, and Tamil Nadu. The verification drive is organised not to trouble anyone but to verify the documents to ensure that they are not illegal migrants from Bangladesh. In case, any illegal migrants from foreign countries were traced, then cases will be booked under Passport Act and Foreigners Act and will be produced to the court.

As a part of the drive to verify documents, the city police recently held an interaction with the foreign nationals who are studying and working in the city to address their grievances.

It may be recalled that the city police in June last year had arrested 38 Sri Lankan nationals who had illegally migrated to India without any passport, with the promise of jobs in Canada. The case is now being handled by the NIA.