New Delhi: Human traffickers living along the India-Bangladesh border have been running a huge scam of generating forged Indian identity documents for the individuals trafficked from across the border, the National Investigation Agency (NIA) has said. “Ranging from Aadhaar cards to voter cards, the human traffickers arrange all such forged documents to ascertain the local identity of the victims,” a senior NIA official told ETV Bharat on Monday.
Investigation conducted by the NIA has revealed that the India-Bangladesh border has become a transit route for transnational human traffickers. According to the official, the NIA had a sharp focus on human trafficking involving Bangladesh and Myanmar nationals at the Indo-Bangladesh border. The investigation further revealed that the human trafficking syndicates were found to have linkages with other facilitators and traffickers operating in various parts of the country and across the border. “The linkages were identified as part of a larger network engaged in human trafficking activities via the Indo-Bangladesh border. The accused were also arranging forged Indian identity documents for the individuals trafficked from across the border,” NIA investigations have further revealed.
Conducting its crackdown on human traffickers at the Indo-Bangladesh border, the NIA on Friday arrested four more accused involved in illegal infiltration into India via Tripura. The arrests were made in a joint operation with the Tripura police, as part of the human trafficking case registered by the NIA in Guwahati in October 2023. The NIA earlier in November 2023, arrested 29 key operatives following nationwide raids on human trafficking syndicates involved in the case.
“The accused had been carrying out human trafficking activities at the behest of racketeers belonging to well-organised syndicates active in several districts of the northeastern state of Tripura. The network of syndicates was further connected to operatives based in other parts of India,” the official said.
The four accused arrested on Friday were coordinating with traffickers operating from across the international border to facilitate illegal infiltration of persons of Bangladeshi origin into India, the official said.
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