ED searches 17 Jharkhand, Bengal sites in Bangladeshi infiltration case

NEW DELHI: Enforcement Directorate is conducting searches at 17 locations in Jharkhand and West Bengal in connection with illegal Bangladeshi infiltration . During the searches, the agency seized various items, including fake Aadhaars, forged passports, illegal arms, property documents, cash, jewellery, printing papers and printing machines.

“Blank proformas used for forging Aadhaar have been recovered, besides printing machines that printed fake Aadhaar cards,” the agency said.

In Sept, ED had registered a case under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act to probe a syndicate involved in providing shelter and legal documents to illegal Bangladeshi and Rohingya migrants . The Centre has declared its intention to carry out a multi-agency probe into illegal infiltration from Bangladesh with PM Modi blaming the JMM-Congress coalition in Jharkhand for the sudden rise of illegal migrants and the threat it poses to the state’s tribals.

The ED has expanded its probe to look into the larger conspiracy where it suspects involvement of politicians and officials of the state administration, both in Jharkhand and West Bengal, behind the largescale infiltration from Bangladesh.