14 Rohingya among 31 BSF pushes in through Sylhet border

Members of India’s Border Security Force (BSF) have pushed 31 people, including 14 Rohingyas, across the border into Bangladesh through the Jaintiapur border area in Sylhet.

They were pushed in across the Lalakhal and Minatila borders of Jaintiapur from Thursday night to early Friday morning.

Later, patrol teams of the Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB) detained them and handed them over to the police.

BGB sources said the BGB members detained 14 people, mostly women and children, on Thursday night while patrolling near the border area adjacent to the Jaliakhola BSF camp in India.

The BGB members questioned them and came to know that they were Rohingya people from Myanmar. Among the detainees were four men, four women, and six children.

BGB’s Battalion-19 commanding officer Lt. Col. Mohammad Zubayer Anwar said that BGB patrols have been intensified to prevent such push-ins across the border.

Meanwhile, early Friday, BGB detained another 17 people, including five women, and seven children, who had been pushed in from India via the Minatila border in Jaintiapur.

Jaintiapur police station officer-in-charge Abul Bashar Mohammad Badruzzaman, said that after initial questioning by the BGB, the detainees were handed over to the police.

The police arranged to send the 17 Bangladeshi nationals to court and the 14 Rohingyas to the Ukhiya camp in Cox’s Bazar, he added.

The OC further said that the detained Rohingya stated that they had illegally entered India from Bangladesh at different times.