• Abhijit Nath, NET Correspondent, Tripura 

Agartala, March 02, 2022 : Uttar Pradesh’s Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) apprehended a 20-year-old Ershad Miah alias Bapon from Tripura’s Putia, Uttar Para area under Kalamchaura Police Station in Sepahijala district, for his alleged involvement in international human trafficking racket.

Ajit Singh, an inspector in charge of the Anti-Terrorist Squad from Uttar Pradesh in collaboration with Kalamchaura Police Station, was reportedly succeeded in arresting the main accused of the international human trafficking racket.

Ershad Miah, the main accused of the international trafficking ring, was arrested from his residence at 5 am on Monday last and an application was filed in the Sonamura Chief Judicial Magistrate’s Court for transit remand to Lucknow. Later, six days transit remand was granted.

Moreover, it was directed that Ershad Miah should be produced before a special court in Lucknow by March 5 next.

On January 27 last, Additional District and Sessions Judge of Court No. 3, Waterways ATS, NIA in Lucknow, the capital of Uttar Pradesh, directed to arrest Ershad Miah of Putia village and produce him in court.

A case was taken up on the basis of the complaint of Inspector Champion Lal on July 26, 2021. It is known that Mohammad Noor of Bangladesh has crossed over to Delhi with Rohingya people. They crossed Delhi by train called Brahmaputra Mail. After receiving this news secretly, Champion Lal reached Ghaziabad railway station in Kanpur to catch Mohammad Noor. It was admitted that there were two men and two women with them.

The interrogation revealed that he had been living in India since 2012. The Bangladeshi Rohingya illegally infiltrated the Indo-Bangladesh border syndicate in Tripura at the behest of gangsters. It is known that these Rohingyas were sold to different places illegally for a large sum of money.

Rahmat Ullah took Rs 40,000 from Ismail for this work. After knowing all this, the people of ATS started investigating the case. After that, the names of Ershad Mia and many others came and he was caught on Monday.

Mannan, Zakir and Chanchal Roy Chowdhury were interrogated by three government lawyers with the intention of arresting many more traffickers.

A case was filed in Lucknow police station under section 420, 467, 468, 471, 370 and 120 (B) of the IPC and 14 of the Foreigners Act.

It is learned that some other brokers are actively working in Putia with the human trafficking and it is believed that their names will come up in the coming days.

In particular, in the middle of the gate number 150 to 160 of the Putia border, from the smuggling of cattle to the trafficking of women, etc. are smuggled by the border smugglers.

Despite the Border Security Force’s (BSF) strict security, the smuggling operation continues. Recently, a man named Ikram Hossain took a 15-year-old Rohingya girl to Ajmer Sharif through gate number 157 of Putia border for trafficking.