Seven Assam-bound Rohingya children arrested in Tripura

Seven Rohingya persons were arrested from an Assam-bound train in Tripura on Sunday, February 4, the police said. They were detained at the Dharmanagar railway station in North Tripura district and later handed over to the Tripura police. Those arrested — six girls and a boy — are in their teens.

Assistant Sub-Inspector of Railway Police Force Laxman Debbarma, who is in charge of a RPF contingent at the Dharmanagar railway station, said the seven were detained after security personnel found them behaving in a suspicious manner in the station premises.

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“All the detainees were having valid general category tickets from Agartala railway station till Badarpur Junction in Assam. On suspicion, we made a preliminary interrogation and found all of them to be Rohingya Muslims from Myanmar. Later, they were handed over to local police at Dharmanagar,” Mr. Debbarma said.

North Tripura district Superintendent of Police Bhanupada Chakraborty said the detainees were being interrogated. Last month, 67 Rohingya persons were arrested in Tripura. Of them, 31 were holed up at the Indo-Bangla international border behind the barbed wire fencing before the BST arrested them.

As per reports, as many as 1,300 Rohingya Muslims have crossed into Bangladesh from India in recent weeks as fears of deportation to Myanmar spark an exodus.

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Lieutenant Colonel Golam Kabir, a Bangladesh border guard commander, said the group first arrived at the border from the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir on January 18.
New Delhi has been facing sharp criticism for turning members of the persecuted minority over to Buddhist-majority Myanmar in recent weeks, including from the United Nations and rights groups. Some 40,000 Rohingya are living in India. Police said those who arrived in Bangladesh had been living in India for years.