Bangladeshi prisoners languish in Bengal jails despite convict swap deal

Kolkata, November 8: It has been more than five years since India and Bangladesh signed a treaty for swapping of sentenced prisoners. But with no progress on the ground, beleaguered authorities in West Bengal, which has almost half of the country’s foreign prisoners - mostly Bangladeshis - are crying for implementing the agreement. Signed in January 2010, the agreement entails allowing foreigners who have been convicted and sentenced, to serve their prison term in their own country. According to the tiol Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), of the 6,000-odd foreign prisoners in India in 2014, 2,935 - including 1,113 convicts - were lodged in various Bengal correctiol homes, the highest in the country. Barring a few Nigerians and some Rohingya Muslims from Myanmar, the others are all Bangladeshis. The trend has continued in 2015, with nearly 4000 Bangladeshis lodged in various jails in the state. As per the latest records of the state correctiol services department, the total Bangladeshi prisoner population in the state stands at 3,757, including 175 children. Considering this, the state correctiol services department has been calling for implementing the agreement on swapping convicts. “It has been more than five years since the agreement was signed but unfortutely nothing has been done at the ground level to transfer the prisoners,” former Additiol Director General of Police (Prisons) Adhir Sharma said. (IANS)

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