Manipur , IMPHAL, August 30: Amidst the recent uproar over the exodus of Northeast people from several South Indian states in the fallout of the Assam violent clash between Bodos and illegal immigrants, the state police today found several illegal migrants from the Muslim dominated Lilong and Hatta Golapati areas of the state.
A reliable source informed that a combined team of the Imphal West Police and the Thoubal Police conducted an operation at Lilong following credible information about the presence of a huge number of militants in the area.
It is learnt that even though the police failed to pick up any militants, several illegal immigrants who were unable to converse in the local language were found from several houses of the area.
Altogether 19 Myanmarese illegal immigrants including two women and three children were picked up from the area.
Meanwhile, another 127 immigrants from several other states were rounded up for further verification during the same operation, a source informed.
The 127 include 62 from West Bengal, 32 from Silchar and 33 from Bihar.
Several of them including the Myanmarese illegal immigrants were found to have married local Muslim girls and residing in rented accommodations.
Following the detection of the illegal foreign immigrants from Lilong area, the Imphal West police teamed up with its Imphal East counterpart and conducted a similar combing operation at the Hatta-Golapati area.
24 Bangladeshi immigrants were rounded up from the operation.
All the migrants both from outside the country and those from other states were later brought to the 2nd MR compound and individually verified upon.
Meanwhile, in a meet with several media persons, IGP (ops) Kailun said the migrants are being verified at the moment and action will be taken up against those who have entered the country without proper documents.
He added that the state police will continue its operation to detect illegal immigrants in other parts of the state.
It is likely that after the MHA had identified five organizations in the state which could whip up communal flare ups in the state, the state home department could be taking up precautionary measures.
Meanwhile, it may be mentioned that two stolen Honda Activa and a CBZ motorbike were also recovered during the Lilong operation.
