Silchar: A Nigerian national found without valid documents to enter India has been detained in Silchar, in what police suspect may be part of a larger international racket involving illegal cross-border movement.
The detention was confirmed by a police source on Thursday, a day after the 44-year-old Nigerian — identified as Esedo — was apprehended along with four other individuals from an auto rickshaw in the Shillongpatty area of the city.
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The five individuals picked up from the auto rickshaw were Esedo, a local couple identified as Tinku Hasan Barbhuiyan and Rumina Hasan Barbhuiyan, a woman from Mizoram named Malswami Dangi — a resident of Aizawl — and the auto rickshaw driver.
During interrogation, Dangi and the Barbhuiyans claimed that Esedo had travelled to Silchar from Delhi. However, police are not ruling out the possibility that the Nigerian may have illegally entered India through Myanmar, given the porous nature of the border in that region.
In a parallel development that has deepened suspicions of a coordinated operation, the Assam Rifles detained a Slovak national on Thursday while he was allegedly attempting to cross into Myanmar through the porous border in Mizoram.
The two incidents — a Nigerian found in Silchar without documents and a Slovak caught trying to exit into Myanmar — have led investigators to suspect that a significant international racket may be behind both cases.