Silchar, Aug. 18: Police arrested six suspected Bangladeshis from Churaibari in south Assam's Karimganj district last night.
They have been identified as Jalal Ahmed, 55, Amir Hossain, 29, Abdul Ahad, 25, Abdul Sabbur, 25, Nurul Amin, 19, and Rashid Ahmed, 14.
Police sources said they were arrested around 8.10pm from a bus that was going from Agartala to Guwahati. The bus was stopped by the police at Churaibari on the Assam-Tripura boundary.
Churaibari is around 55km from Karimganj town and around 115km from Silchar.Kalipada Dey, officer-in-charge of Churaibari police outpost, said the police, on the basis of a tip-off, were checking vehicles at the spot. They were inside the bus and their body language appeared to be very suspicious, he said.
Dey said some cash (Rs 2,050 in Indian currency), medicines and three mobile phones were seized from them. However, no document was found in their possession.
He said during the preliminary interrogation, they confessed that they hail from Kutupalong, a village in Cox's Bazar district of Bangladesh.
They said they were heading to Guwahati from where they were about to go to Siliguri and then to Nepal, which was their final destination. They added that they were going to Nepal in search of jobs.
Asked if they could be linked with any militant outfit, he said no information on this was obtained from them during interrogation. However, the possibility cannot be ruled out, he added.
The other police officials who were with Dey during the operation included Sampatlal Dey, Bongshidhar Rabidas, Hirendra Dey, Sujit Sharma and Sujan Suklabaidya.
He added that the Bangladeshis were handed over to Bazaricherra police and they would be produced in a Karimganj court.
The officer in-charge of Bazaricherra police station, Manoj Rajbongshi, said the arrested persons would be produced before court tomorrow.
Karimganj superintendent of police Gaurav Upadhyay told The Telegraph this evening that all the arrested persons are being thoroughly investigated to know if they have any militant links.
