The National Investigation Agency (NIA) on Saturday filed charges against two Bangladeshi nationals for allegedly entering India illegally a decade ago and operating a human trafficking racket that forced people from their country into labor.
According to an NIA statement, the investigation revealed that the accused, Muhammed Sahajalal Haldar and Muhammed Idris alias Erdish Khan, crossed into India via Benapole on the India-Bangladesh border and initially worked as waste segregators.
Benapole is a town located in Bangladesh's Jessore district.
After entering India, Haldar and Khan rented land in Seegehalli and later in Margondanahalli, Karnataka. They established their own waste segregation businesses by constructing godowns and temporary sheds, the NIA's statement noted.
The accused employed trafficked Bangladeshi nationals, forcing them into hard labor for meager wages under the threat of being arrested by Indian authorities, the agency said.
The NIA's probe found that as part of an organized human trafficking network, Bangladeshi nationals were brought to India with promises of secure jobs and valid Indian identity documents.
"Further strengthening its case against the human trafficking network, the NIA on Saturday charge-sheeted two men for illegally crossing into India 10 years ago and pushing Bangladeshi nationals into forced labour," the statement said.
The charge sheet was submitted in a special NIA court in Bengaluru against Haldar and Khan, who were arrested in February with the assistance of the Internal Security Division of Karnataka, following a period of evasion, the statement added.
The NIA registered the case on November 7 last year after receiving credible inputs about entities based in Karnataka collaborating with facilitators and traffickers in Assam, Tripura, and Bangladesh to create a transnational human trafficking network.
Nationwide searches by the NIA led to the arrest of several individuals, and the agency had previously charge-sheeted 12 Bangladeshi nationals.
"Further investigations are continuing to track other suspected traffickers, including 'dalals' and touts involved in the racket," the NIA said.