Guwahati, Nov 8 (PTI) Altogether 47 touts involved in human trafficking from Myanmar and Bangladesh were arrested on Wednesday from seven states across India in a joint operation by the NIA and Assam Police, a senior official said.
Special DGP of Assam Police Harmeet Singh told a press conference here that the arrests were made after a joint country-wide raid was launched during the early hours of the day in association with police forces of the seven respective states.
“We have picked up 25 touts from Tripura, five from Assam, three from West Bengal, nine from Karnataka, three from Tamil Nadu and one each from Haryana and Telangana,” he said.
The Assam Police assisted the National Investigation Agency (NIA) teams in operations in Assam, Tripura and in north India. It has 17 teams on the ground for the operation, he said.
Singh said that in February 2023 a group of illegal Rohingyas were detected on a train coming from Tripura at Karimganj Railway Station in Assam. After thorough investigation it was found that illegal Rohingyas and infiltrators regularly enter the country through the Indo-Bangla border.”
This led Assam Police to increase their vigil. “It resulted in the turning back of 450 illegal migrants, Rohingyas and Bangladeshis, with the assistance of border guarding forces,” he said.
During the course of enquiries and questioning, it was found that the touts play a major role in the infiltration as they help illegal migrants to enter India.
“It was also learnt that the touts operate not only on both the sides of the India-Bangladesh border, but also in other parts of the country. Therefore, we launched an operation to root out the network of these touts,” he said.
The Special Task Force (STF) of Assam Police launched the operation in July this year and were able to arrest 10 middlemen.
“Further investigation revealed that the network of touts exist across India and is a serious national security concern with inter-state ramifications. Therefore, the Assam government requested the Centre to transfer one of the cases to the NIA given the fact that the state is being used as a corridor for this anti-national activity,” he added.
Accordingly, the NIA took up the case and started an investigation in collaboration with the Assam Police, Singh said.
“NIA and Assam Police collated the list of touts involved in this nefarious crime. We launched the operation Wednesday morning after days of meticulous planning,” he added.