Kolkata: Two Bangladeshi-origin persons holding French passports with refugee status were arrested in Kolkata on Tuesday for allegedly overstaying in India, the police said.
The landlord of the house where the duo were staying has also been arrested, they said.
Mahananda Sraman (35) and Mintu Barman (32), the two French nationals, were detained and later on arrested after they went to the Security Control Organisation office in Bhowanipore in the southern part of the city to extend their visa to stay in the city.
"The duo overstayed in the country after their visa expired last December. Today they came to the Security Control Organisation office and after failing to explain their overstay here, they were detained. We got a call from Security Control officials following which they were arrested," an officer of Bhowanipore Police Station told PTI.
While Sraman and Barman have been booked under the Foreigners' Act section 14A (remaining in any area in India for a period exceeding the period for which the visa was issued), their landlord Biswajit Pathak was arrested for defending (canvassing) the duo, the officer said.
Initial probe into the matter showed that both Sraman and Barman were Buddhists by religion and were residents of Bangladesh's Cox's Bazar till 2005, he said.
"In Bangladesh they were tortured, after which they decided to flee to France. They went to France in early 2006 where they managed to stay in hiding. Then they managed French passports with refugee status for themselves. They planned a trip to India and entered the country in September last year and had also visited Bodh Gaya in Bihar," the officer said after a brief interrogation of the two.
"We are looking into their background and running a check on every aspect of their stay here. Going by the recent alerts, we are not taking any chance," he added.
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