New Delhi: Police arrested an alleged kingpin of an illegal immigration racket facilitating the entry of Bangladeshis into the city. Iqbal Hossain alias Farhan Khan (44), originally from Bangladesh, operated under a fake Indian identity. According to DCP (crime) Aditya Gautam, "Hossain was running an organised operation, smuggling Bangladeshi nationals into India via Assam and ensuring their smooth settlement in Delhi and NCR by providing them with fake Indian identity documents."
A team of the crime branch was recently formed to identify and apprehend illegal immigrants operating in Delhi. Following some tipoffs, officers went undercover as garment vendors, gathering more intelligence on the syndicate. Following multiple surveillance operations, the crime branch raided locations in Nehru Place and Badarpur, leading to the arrest of Hossain, Razeeb Miyan alias Rahul Bishwas(21) and Mohammad Momin alias Jitender Yadav (22) from Badarpur Border and the recovery of multiple forged documents, including Indian passports, and Aadhaar, PAN and Voter ID cards. The mobile phones seized from the accused contained evidence of communication with other human traffickers.
Police sources confirmed that traffickers based in Delhi-NCR was helping Hossain in settling illegal immigrants in the city. It was also revealed that despite being married in Bangladesh, Hossain fraudulently got married to an Indian woman from Madhya Pradesh through a matrimonial website. He used this marriage to obtain fake documents that helped him blend into society unnoticed. His garment business also served as a front to harbour illegal immigrants, allowing them to work and live in Delhi without raising suspicion. Hossain told police that Aadhaar enrolment officer Agrasen Kumar (28) was instrumental in creating fake IDs for Bangladeshi immigrants. Following this, Kumar was arrested after police raided his office in Okhla Phase II.
Hossain dropped out of school in Bangladesh in 1995 and got involved in rice trading. Between 2004 and 2009, he lived in England on a work permit. After returning to Bangladesh, he ran a grocery business before illegally entering India in 2017 through Assam.