Katigorah Corridor: Women And Children Among Nine Rohingyas Detained; Who are the Agents?

Katigorah seems to have become a corridor for illegal border crossing. Every other day, there is a report of Bangladeshi citizens or Rohingyas being caught by locals, trying to cross the border and return back to Bangladesh. On Thursday (August 21), once again, nine Rohingyas, including women and children, were detained by locals in the Supplygate area of Katigorah and handed over to the police. According to reports, the detained Rohingyas had entered India illegally from various camps in Bangladesh.

For the past few months, several Bangladeshi nationals living illegally in India, as well as Rohingyas from different refugee camps, have been caught. These people, who had entered India illegally and were living in different states, are being nabbed by Indian citizens while attempting to return to their homeland through the border areas. For the last couple of months, this secret influx of Bangladeshis and Rohingyas has continued. On Thursday, once again, a group of Rohingyas was caught by Indian citizens.

Locals in West Katigorah’s Supplygate area spotted some unknown individuals loitering around and informed the police. On receiving the alert, personnel from the Gumrah Police Investigation Centre (PIC) rushed to the spot. Nine Rohingyas, including women and children, were detained and immediately sent to Silchar.

The detained Rohingyas told locals that three years ago, they had crossed into India through the Tripura border from Bangladesh’s Teknaf Leda Rohingya camp and Khagrachhari Utiya Rohingya camp. Since then, they had worked as labourers in Jammu, Punjab, and Delhi. Although they had been living in India without disturbance for nearly three years, the Indian government’s recent tough stand against illegal migrants alarmed them. This prompted them to decide to return to the camps in Bangladesh.

They claimed that an agent had assured them of taking them across the border into Bangladesh, which is why they came to Katigorah. But once here, the agent abandoned them and disappeared.

According to local sources, for the past couple of months, hundreds of suspicious individuals intending to cross over into Bangladesh have gathered in Katigorah after travelling from different Indian states. Most of these people are believed to be Bangladeshi nationals and Rohingya who had been living illegally in India for a long time. Katigorah is thus fast becoming a corridor for such individuals attempting to return to Bangladesh.