Illegal stay: 21 foreigners return to detention from jail, 6 deported

Twenty-one foreigners, who were put in jail after some of the 60 people held for illegally staying in India escaped detention, were on Thursday brought back to a temporary detention centre in the police lines in Greater Noida, officials said.

Sixty foreign nationals with invalid travel documents, including fake passport and expired visa, were rounded up by the Gautam Buddh Nagar police on July 10 for illegal stay in the country.

Seventeen of them escaped on the night of July 11 after breaking open a bathroom window at a facility in the reserved police lines in Surajpur, Greater Noida, where they had been accommodated with "restrictions" under the Foreigners Act.

Subsequently, those who had provided documents in support of their stay were let go, the officials said.

"Six foreigners, who did not have valid documents, have been deported between July 18 and July 25. Separately, one of the Nigerians was found accused in a case in Dehradun, Uttarakhand, and has been transferred there," a police spokesperson said.

Among those deported, three were from Nigeria, two from Angola and one from the Philippines.

"The remaining 21 foreigners, who were in jail, have been brought back to the police lines in Surajpur at the temporary detention centre," the official said.

They had been sent to judicial custody under section 151 of the CrPC to prevent their escape in the aftermath of the 17 others fleeing from the police lines, he added.

"Now, with their 14-day remand period ending, 21 of them are back to police lines," the official said.

Meanwhile, there is still no clue about the whereabouts of the 17 foreigners, mostly from African countries, who fled the temporary detention, a senior police officer told PTI, adding searches are underway.

The 60foreignerswere initially put under "restrictions" as per section 3(2) of The Foreigners Act, 1946, which requires an outsider to stay at a particular place prescribed by local authorities until they furnish proof of their identity and other documents.

Some of these foreigners are students who had come to India and enrolled in colleges but overstayed despite their visas expiring.

"Once your visa expires, the stay automatically becomes illegal regardless of where you stay in the country. There are also cases in which foreigners move from one place to other in hiding and some of them might have been in Greater Noida too. The probe is on," Senior Superintendent of Police Vaibhav Krishna had earlier told PTI.