Pickpockets with visas
Posted by barunroy on April 17, 2008
Balurghat, April 16: Two Bangladeshi men in India on tourist visas were caught picking pockets in a bus at the border town of Hili and handed over to police last evening.
Khandakar Abdul Rashid, 42, and David Paul, 36, were caught with Rs 26,500 in cash, which they had just picked from a passenger’s bag. They were carrying their passports with them.
It later emerged that a third pickpocket, Ratan Ghosh, managed to escape in the melee. His nationality is not known yet.
South Dinajpur police superintendent Kalyan Kumar Mullick said Paul and Rashid had crossed over to India yesterday morning after completing immigration formalities at the Hili international check-post. “Their visas are valid for one month,” the police chief added.
At this time of the year, a Kali puja is organised in the Hili area along with a mela. Police sources said the two had planned to target visitors to the fair, who they thought would be easy pickings.
Sajen Mahato, whose pocket the duo had picked yesterday, had not gone to the fair however.
“I had gone to Hili where I sold a small plot of land and was returning with the money to my home in Trimohini on a Balurghat-bound bus. I was standing when I felt a slight tug at the bag I was carrying. Its zipper was open and I saw the person next to me withdraw his hand from inside the bag,” Mahato said.
The trader said he immediately caught hold of the man, later identified as Paul, and raised an alarm. “We also caught another person (Rashid) who was trying to defend the pickpocket and found the entire amount on them,” Mahato said.
The two were handed over to the Hili police station where Mahato lodged a formal complaint. Paul and Rashid confessed that they had an accomplice on the bus (Ghosh), but he escaped.
Both were produced in the district court here today where the judge remanded them in jail custody.
The police sources said many Bangladeshis also crossed over the unfenced border to illegally enter India during the fair at Hili. However, with the dates of the panchayat polls in Bengal having been announced, there is extra vigil along the border now. Paul and Rashid might have used their passports to enter India in order to avoid getting caught by the BSF.
The sources said Paul had written in his immigration papers that he was off to Krishnagar in Nadia to meet a “relative” named Pradip Sarkar.
Rashid had said he was off to Fulbari in North Dinajpur’s Islampur to meet one Rashid Sheikh. The police said they were trying to verify the authenticity of these claims. [The Telegraph]
