Amid COVID-19, an eye on foreigners staying illegally

NEW DELHI: In light of the COVID-19 crisis, the Delhi Police has also had to keep a close eye on foreigners staying illegally in the Capital and violating their VISA norms. During the lockdown, 12 such cases were registered in Dwarka, where dozens of foreign nationals were found living illegally without documents.

“All the cases were registered from March 23 to April 24 and they were booked under Section 14 of The Foreigners Act,” an official said. Given that all international flights were grounded, the Foreigners Regional Registration Office had stopped taking deportation cases from Delhi Police directly. Earlier, the Delhi Police, as part of normal procedure, used to send illegal immigrants directly to the FRRO and would thus have no cause to book or arrest any of these foreign nationals.

Now that the FRRO office was forced to reject deportation cases due to a lack of flights, Delhi Police has had to register cases under the Foreigners Act, arrest them and then send them (foreigners) to judicial custody. An official further said that earlier, they used to apprehend them after which their medical examination was conducted and then they were sent to FRRO for deportation.

According to Delhi Police data, before the lockdown, as many as 36 foreign nationals (24-Mohan Garden, 9-Uttam Nagar, 2- Dabri and 1 from Dwarka Sector 23) were deported from Dwarka. The data further revealed that in the year 2019, as many as 146 foreign nationals were deported from Dwarka after they were staying illegally in various parts of the district. Around 32 were also nabbed for committing crimes.

Narcotics Control Bureau data from 2019 also showed that more than 18,000 African nationals had violated visa norms in the last few years and were overstaying in India. Various probes revealed that the arrested African Nationals were overstaying, entering without a valid VISA or were violating the terms and conditions of their VISA document in India.

Deputy Commissioner of Police (Dwarka) Anto Alphonse said, “During the lockdown, we continued to take action against foreign nationals who were staying illegally in various parts of Dwarka. Staff were told to take all necessary precautions in all cases.”

According to a government official, earlier on in the lockdown, international flights were not allowed but slowly, as per the availability of flights, they resumed deportations. As per usual practice, once Delhi Police hands over a foreign national to the FRRO, they are housed at foreigners’ detention centres, from where they are deported as and when their embassies arrange for their travel.

In the year 2019, a meeting was held between various agencies working at the airport. During the meeting, an official from FRRO had raised the issue of the increasing number of cases with regards to foreigners coming on fake Indian passports. In this regard, the Delhi Police had said that proper investigation is being conducted in such cases.

During the lockdown, we continued to take action against foreign nationals who were staying illegally in various parts of Dwarka: DCP (Dwarka)