Over 550 illegal immigrants detained in massive crackdowns across Ahmedabad, Surat

Ahmedabad, April 26
More than 400 illegal immigrants were arrested in Ahmedabad and over 100 in Surat during a pre-dawn crackdown from Friday night to Saturday morning.

The Ahmedabad Crime Branch, in collaboration with teams from the SOG, EOW, Zone 6, and Headquarters, launched a large-scale combing operation targeting illegal foreign immigrants in the city.

The operation began at 3 am on Saturday and led to the detention of over 400 suspected illegal immigrants, mainly from Bangladesh.

Ahmedabad Crime Branch Joint Commissioner of Police (JCP) Sharad Singhal told IANS that the operation was based on specific Intelligence inputs from the Minister of State for Home Affairs and the Director General of Police (DGP) regarding illegal immigrants residing near Chandola in Ahmedabad.

"As many as 457 infiltrators have been arrested, interrogation of all is going on, all will be deported," JCP Singhal confirmed.

He further stated that two FIRs had already been registered by the Crime Branch since April 2024, through which 127 Bangladeshi nationals had been arrested, and 77 of them had been deported, after which the police received inputs regarding more illegal immigrants living in the area.

"Earlier, 127 Bangladeshi infiltrators were arrested by filing two FIRs, 70 have been deported, and the rest of the proceedings are underway," he added.

The authorities revealed that all of those detained were found possessing fake Indian citizenship documents.

"All of them have fake documents of Indian citizenship, on what basis and with whose help the documents were made we will find out. They will be deported after investigation," JCP Singhal said.

He further added that the process of deportation would begin after the completion of the interrogation and legal formalities.

Meanwhile, in a parallel operation in Surat, city police carried out a widespread search across six different police station areas -- Udhana, Katargam, Mahidharpura, Pandesara, Salabatpur, and Limbayat -- where they detained over 100 Bangladeshi citizens.

These individuals were reportedly living in the city for years using fake documents and were engaged in various occupations.

The Surat police's operation began late on Friday night and is ongoing. Multiple police teams are currently interrogating those detained to ascertain how they acquired forged documents and how long they have been residing in the city undetected.