38 Rohingya, mostly minors, sent to judicial custody in Tripura

AGARTALA: 38 Rohingya Muslims, mostly children, who had been detained from different parts of Tripura by the security forces, were sent to judicial custody and juvenile homes on Monday, police said.
A police official said a local court in Agartala sent 31 Rohingya Muslims, including seven women and 17 children, to judicial custody.
“The court offered bail to the adult foreigners, but they could not submit the bail bond.Hence they would be in judicial custody till February 13. The 17 children will stay along with their mothers in the central jail,” the official said.
According to the official, the Border Security Force (BSF) had on January 22 handed over the 31 Rohingya Muslims, who were stranded along the India-Bangladesh border since January 18, to the Tripura Police. Since then, they had been in judicial custody. However, their 14-day judicial custody had come to an end on Monday.
Another local court in northern Tripura’s Dharmanagar, 190 km north of the state capital, also sent seven Rohingya Muslim children to a juvenile home in north Tripura district headquarters.
“The seven children would be in the juvenile home till their cases are settled,” an official of the Government Railway Police (GRP) said.
Meanwhile, the Railway Protection Force (RPF) of the Northeast Frontier Railways (NFR) on Sunday had detained six girls and a boy, belonging to the Rohingya community, at the Dharmanagar railway station near Assam. The children, aged between 13 to 17 years, were subsequently handed over to the GRP.
“The GRP on Monday produced the children in the local court and the court sent them to a juvenile home,” the official said.
He added that these children, accompanied by touts, had reached Dharmanagar from Agartala by bus and intended to go to Badarpur in southern Assam by train. Though the children were detained, the touts reportedly managed to escape.
With this, 68 Rohingya Muslims, mostly children, have been apprehended in Tripura and along the Assam-Tripura border in the last two weeks.
Tripura has a 856 km-long international border with Bangladesh, most of which is fenced, except a stretch of nearly 20 km.