Police on Monday arrested 16 Bangladeshi immigrants from Cooch Behar when they were allegedly trying to enter their country without documents.

Dinhata police apprehended six men, four women and six children at Falimari
station.

A source said the persons admitted to being Bangladeshi citizens from Kurigram district, which shares a border with Cooch Behar.

According to police sources, the group illegally entered India nearly five to six years ago and were working as labourers in the NCR area.

“The recent crackdown against Bangladeshi nationals in Delhi, Haryana and Rajasthan reportedly prompted them to return home. They travelled by train to reach Falimari station with plans to slip back into Bangladesh through an unfenced border stretch,” said a source.

Acting on a tip-off, assistant sub-inspector Arun Tamang, who is in charge of the Gitaldaha police camp, nabbed the group at the station.

“Their body language and dialect raised suspicions. Upon questioning at Dinhata police station, they admitted to being illegal immigrants,” he said.

The group was produced in the Dinhata subdivisional court on Tuesday.

This operation follows a similar arrest on May 29, when 28 Bangladeshi nationals, including eight women and nine children, were intercepted near Dinhata station in Cooch Behar. They had reportedly been working at brick kilns in Haryana and Bihar.

These return journeys are typically coordinated by cross-border touts for a fee, cops said. “In the May 29 case, precise intelligence helped intercept the group before they could disperse into the border’s rural stretches,” a police officer said.

Cops said the arrests reflected a broader pattern of reverse migration, as undocumented Bangladeshis have been facing increasing scrutiny in urban and industrial hubs across India.

Dinhata SDPO Dhiman Mitra said arrested persons from both incidents were in judicial custody.