The police in Assam and Tripura have detained 61 Rohingya, including minors, since January 21 night. Local courts on January 22 sent them to judicial custody for 14 days.
Officials in Tripura capital Agartala said the Border Security Force (BSF) handed over 31 Rohingya to the police at Rayermura in West Tripura district. Rayermura is about 15 km from Agartala.
The 31 had been stranded for four days in no-man’s land beyond the barbed-wire fence along the India-Bangladesh border because of a stand-off between the BSF and Border Guards Bangladesh (BGB). The two border forces had since January 18 been accusing each other of pushing the 31 Rohingya into their territories.
“The decision to take the Rohingya in was taken after our headquarters in New Delhi obtained an approval from the Home Ministry. We have been providing food and shelter to these people,” a BSF officer said, declining to elaborate how the Rohingya happened to reach the no-man’s land – along the Zero Line on the border between two countries and 150 yards from the barbed-wire fence – in the first place.