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MANGALURU: The recent arrest of 14 illegal Bangladeshis in Belthangady has raised questions about their larger presence in the district and allegations that police had turned a blind eye to this problem.

 However, this is not first time that Dakshina Kannada witnessed such arrests. There have been several cases of illegal Bangladeshi immigrant arrests in the past as well. According to highly placed sources in the police department, DK has a presence of several hundreds of Bangladeshi immigrant workers and they work in several parts of the DK district.

 How do they hide their identity? Sources said that most of these immigrants are controlled by kingpins who act as middlemen and arrange labour force for third party. These immigrants introduce themselves either as a Bengalis or from North India and people hire them without checking their background. They mainly work at construction sites, salons, fast food joints and other do other manual works.

 These illegal immigrants are supplied by middlemen. Probing officer of Venoor arrests said that all the arrested had landed in Belthangady after working in various parts of South India and were supplied to Nissar Ahmed, a resident of Moodbidri, to work at a construction site two months ago. "This was detected when some of the arrested were to able to converse in Tamil fluently. So, we found out that they had worked earlier in parts of Tamil Nadu," said the officer.

 In July, 2015, presence of Bangladeshi immigrants was detected when three workers were killed in a landslide at a construction site in Farangipet. Among the three, two were identified as Bangladeshi citizens. Another Bangladeshi was injured in the incident. The police, who suspected injured person’s Hindi accent, questioned him and found that he (along with the two deceased) were illegal immigrants from bangladesh.

 Sources from the police department agree that these illegal immigrants pose a threat to the national security as terrorists modules can make use of them for carrying out terror activities. Mangaluru and Udupi have been known for terror hideouts.