Kolkata, May 9 : The West Bengal Police on Friday said that as many as 16 illegal Bangladeshi residents at Nadia district in West Bengal have been arrested. Of the 16 arrested, 10 were women and the rest six were men.

Later, on the basis of their interrogation, it was learned that a local resident acted as an agent ensuring the illegal infiltration of these 16 Bangladeshi citizens to the Indian territory.

All of them were presented at court in Nadia. The court remanded them to police custody.

Sources from the Nadia district police said that these 16 illegal Bangladeshi residents entered the Indian side a few months back and started residing at a village under Duttapulia village panchayat under Dhantala police station in Nadia district for quite some time.

In face of interrogation, district police sources said, these 16 illegal Bangladeshi infiltrators admitted that the arrangement of their houses for staying after entering India was also arranged by the same local agents who ensured their illegal infiltration.

After some time, district police sources said, some of them even got scattered to other parts of India to earn their livelihoods as labourers.

However, with the administration in different states of India becoming active of late in hunting the illegal Bangladeshi infiltrators, they decided to get assembled again at the same village at Nadia they were initially hiding and then make an attempt to go back to Bangladesh.

However, the information of their re-assembling was passed on to the local police through sources and after that, a certain raid and search operation were carried out following which all were nabbed just as they were trying to go back to Bangladesh through the porous border.

Nadia had been frequently in the news for almost the last one year over the arrests of illegal Bangladeshi infiltrators from there, considering that the international borders with Bangladesh in that district is extremely porous at certain points.

Nadia had also been in the news recently over busting rackets engaged in arranging fake Indian identity documents including Indian passports for illegal Bangladeshi infiltrators.

/IANS