The sleuths of Uttar Pradesh Anti-Terrorist Squad (UP ATS) claimed to have arrested four more Rohingyas living illegally in Meerut. The cops also claimed to have busted a gang of agents who arranged forged papers to help Rohingyas in their illegal stay in India.
The accused were identified as Hafiz Shafiq, Azizur Rehman, Mufizur Rehman and Mohd Ismail. The cops said they recovered incriminating documents, including forged identity cards, passports, a laptop, a pen drive and foreign currency.
Addressing mediapersons here on Friday evening, ADG (Law & Order) Prashant Kumar said: “Human trafficking of this nature can change the demography, if allowed unchecked. Such people were also causing huge economic losses to the country by way of Hawala transactions.”
It was being investigated as a case of human trafficking, the ADG said, adding that no PFI link was found so far.
He further said the gangs of agents make fake United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees cards and charge a lot of money to help people enter India illegally. These people are involved in criminal & anti-national activities, he added.
On Thursday, the UP ATS had arrested two Rohingyas, identified as Mohamed Rafique and Mohammed Amin, from the Makhdoom Nagar area under the Kotwali police station of Aligarh. They were allegedly living in India using forged documents. The ATS team also recovered six gold biscuits, Aadhaar cards and UNHCR cards from their possession.
The ATS arrested the two on a tip-off given by Noor Alam and Amir Husain, who were arrested in Ghaziabad last week. ATS sources further said that the arrested accused had been involved in helping other Rohingyas enter the country through different channels.
ADG, ATS, GK Goswami, who led the operation, said it was for the first time that Rohingyas had been caught in Aligarh with six gold biscuits weighing 100 grams each. In March, the UP ATS had busted a gang that was helping Rohingyas gain illegal entry into different parts of the country. The cops had arrested two brothers from Myanmar and they were identified as Farooq alias Hasan and Shahid.
The ADG said that they had facilitated jobs for many Rohingyas in the meat processing units in Aligarh, Kanpur, and Unnao. He said further interrogations with the arrested accused were underway.
Meanwhile, a youth was allegedly abducted in Kushinagar and a ransom was demanded for his release. According to an FIR lodged by Narad Gupta, a resident of Ward No. 25 in Indiranagar, two youths reached there on a motorcycle on Thursday evening and called his son Sandeep, asking him to accompany them to attend a party at Kaptanganj crossing near Sharda Hospital. His son went with them and just an hour later, he received a call and was told that his son had been kidnapped. He was asked to arrange Rs 20 lakh for his safe release. Sandeep was doing a pathology course from a paramedical college in Gorakhpur. The police registered a case against Ajeet aka Bhattu and two unknown friends, and were making efforts to rescue the victim.