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A total of 20,223 Bangladeshi nationals entered Nepal by air in 2010 alone, an increase of 60 percent compared to 2009. The astounding figure follows a huge increase of 48 percent in 2008 and a steady increase of 7 percent in 2009, in comparison to the respective previous years. [break]
Immigration officials consider the trend quite unprecedented and unnatural, taking into account that there has not been any spectacular tourism promotion or business activity between the two countries to trigger such huge movement of people.
Racketeers have immersed themselves in trafficking Bangladeshi nationals through Nepal for the last few years after Bangladesh was restricted by Gulf countries to limited quotas for the supply of migrant workers.
Metropolitan Police Range Kathmandu (MPRK) arrested 17 Bangladeshi nationals, both agents and migrant workers, during raids in 2010 while they were allegedly trying to fly overseas with fake Nepali passports. Likewise, Kuwaiti authorities arrested 34 Indian and Bangladeshi nationals in December, 2010 for possessing fake Nepali passports.
The Central Investigation Bureau (CIB), meanwhile, is preoccupied with this unusual inflow of people from a particular country and is preparing to establish a special section to extend its probe to human trafficking, with its ubiquitous links to social and financial crime.
Trafficking of Bangladeshi nationals through Nepal is rampant at a time when human trafficking pervades other crimes, said DIG Rajendra Singh Bhandari, CIB chief. “Human trafficking is not an isolated crime but rather has multiple links with other crimes. We have, therefore, been studying it with a broad approach,” he said.
CIB has taken on the issue after efforts by local police proved inadequate to dismantle the rackets. Following a successful operation in May, 2010 during which a Bangladeshi kingpin and a dozen other Bangladeshi nationals were arrested, police had said that around 1,200 Bangladeshi nationals were in the capital awaiting fake Nepali passports to fly to the Gulf.
“After that operation, we believed many Bangladeshi nationals left the country but in the course of subsequent moves we came to feel that this particular area of crime demanded a concerted and focused approach,” said DSP Deepak Thapa, who led the operation.
Of the 13 Bangladeshi nationals, five were deported by the Immigration Department a couple of months ago. The others were released against a general court-appearance date.
Investigative officials said that racketeers bring Bangladeshis to Nepal in groups as tourists and engage them here for about a month to teach them Nepali lest they become suspect for not being able to communicate during security checks. They are even found to be working at construction sites or engaging in other kinds of work while waiting for fake Nepali passports. They are usually lodged in groups in different places under the supervision of the rackets, officials said.
It´s true that some Bangladeshis come to Nepal to work in the construction sector; however, the number of such workers is not that high. “Some private companies might have brought in a few hundreds of them but the number is not significant,” said Yakcha Dhoj Karki, president of the Federation of Contractors Association Nepal.
Another side to the story is that some racketeers have been flying Bangladeshis from their own country, using fake Nepali passports. A few months ago, the Saudi embassy in Dhaka had sent some 300 fake Nepali passports in bulk to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) here. The fake passports were reportedly collected from Bangladeshi nationals who were applying for visas for Gulf countries.
“We have even found out certain useful details about Nepali brokers and racketeers and handed those over to the CIB,” said a MPRK official.
According to officials, a substantial number of Bangladeshis could also have been entering Nepal overland during the same period when others were coming in by air.
While Bangladeshi nationals have a central role in the racket, the issue flared up last year when five Afghan nationals headed for Australia on Nepali passports were arrested in Malaysia. The passports were found to have been issued fraudulently in the names of Afghan nationals with the connivance of a MOFA staffer who was later released on bail.
Investigative officials said that the massive inflow of Bangladeshis in Nepal started in 2007, almost simultaneously feeding two types of major crime--illegal VOIP operations and human trafficking. “We are looking into the possible implications of this simultaneity,” a high-ranking official said.
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