Government will send back 11,000 foreigners living illegally in Bangladesh after expiry of visa to their respective countries. The decision was taken at a meeting of the Cabinet Committee on Law and Order at the Secretariat in the city on Thursday. Liberation War Affairs Minister AKM Mozammel Huq chaired the meeting.
Members of the committee Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal, Commerce Minister Tipu Munshi, State Minister for Public Administration Farhad Hossain, State Minister of Shipping Ministry Khalid Mahmud Chowdhury and top officials of ministries concerned along with law enforcing personnel participated in the meeting.
Mozammel Haq said, “Many foreign nationals come to the country with tourist visas after their visas expire, they do not return to their countries. Earlier, we decided to identify them to send them back and our intelligence agencies followed accordingly.” “Now the problem is that they have no money and many of them are from countries having no embassy in Dhaka,” he said, adding in this context, we have decided to allocate some money from the government for them. So that all the illegal foreigners can be sent back to their countries. Mozammel also said at present more than 11,000 foreigners mostly Africans are living illegally in the country. Majority of them are Nigerians or Tanzanians.
In this regard, Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal said, “Many of the illegal foreigners who got involved in various petty crimes are not being able to return to motherland, after their term in prison, due to lack of money. They are not being taken even after their embassies concerned have been contacted.
He said, “Many illegal foreigners also are being involved in various business without any proper authorisation. The number is almost 3,000.” Mozammel Haq said many Rohingyas reportedly have gone abroad with Bangladeshi passports in the past. In the previous meeting, we decided to stop the malpractice. “We have been able to do this successfully,” he claimed, adding that now no Rohingyas are being able to manage Bangladeshi passport.
