Tripura court sentences three Rohingyas two years on the charge of infiltration

A court has convicted three Rohingya refugees and sentenced them to jail terms in a rare and harsh punishment for cross-border infiltrators in Tripura. The accused have been given two years in jail and imposed a fine.

The district and sessions judge in Kailashahar, the district headquarters of Unakoti, convicted the infiltrators from Bangladesh who originally hailed from the strife-torn Myanmar. The trial lasted less than a year after the Rohingyas were captured.

A prosecution lawyer said on Tuesday that five people, including minors were detained at the motor stand area in Kailashahar on April 4 of last year. They claimed to have strayed from a designated Rohingya refugee camp in southeast Bangladesh and entered India illegally.

It was discovered that the detainees were members of a family and had intended to travel to a location in north India. No contraband items or incriminating documents were found in their possession during their detentions. The district and sessions judge of North Tripura, Sudipta Chowdhury, convicted two male and one female accused to two years imprisonment and fined them ₹10,000 each.

The judge stated that if the convicts fail to pay the fine, they will serve an additional month in jail. The two minors were sent to a juvenile home. This sentencing of two years for the charge of infiltration is a rare case in Tripura as the court normally orders deportation of foreign nationals or gives light imprisonment to the accused.