Agartala, Tripura, April 23 (HBTV): Approximately 1,018 people, including 498 Bangladeshi nationals, were detained in Tripura while they were trying to cross the Indo-Bangla international border into Indian territory between January 2023 and April 15, 2024, the Border Security Force (BSF) said on Monday.             

Of the Bangladeshi citizens, 337 (including 93 females and 24 children) were apprehended the previous year, while the 161 (including 43 females and 19 children) were apprehended this year.         

Besides the Bangladeshi nationals, 396 were Indian nationals while 124 were Rohingyas, the BSF said. 

During a media conference, BSF Inspector General Piyush Patel Purushottam Das said the BSF of Tripura frontier apprehended 1,018 people from January 2023 till April 15 this year. Among them, 426 were ‘outgoing’ and 592 were ‘incoming’ infiltrators.  The detentions increased compared to the previous years’ cases.      

The BSF detained 369 people, including 150 Bangladesh nationals, 160 Indians and 59 Rohingyas in 2022. The authorities detained 208 intruders in 2021, of which 115 were Indians and 93 were Bangladeshis.          

The BSF official said the number of Bangladeshi nationals and Rohingya infiltrators increased the previous year as they are using the state as a corridor to move to different parts of the country. Touts having access and network in different parts of Tripura are involved in facilitating the infiltration and providing shelter with fake identity documents, the official said.       

Das also informed that a total of 29 touts were apprehended the previous November and December during a special operation launched by the National Investigation Agency with assistance from the BSF. 

Tripura shares an 856-km-long international border with Bangladesh, and some patches of the border are yet to be fenced.