The Special Intelligence Agency (SPA) has decided to maintain a database of a section of foreign nationals living in Bangladesh for preserving their track records.
The decision was taken at a meeting of the Ministry of Home Affairs held last month in view of the involvement of the foreigners in committing crimes of grave nature. Some of them are overstaying in the capital.
An senior SPA officer told The New Nation that zonal officers of the agency had been asked to compile with the information about foreigners doing businesses or working in private offices or engaged in other activities in their respective zones. The zonal officials have also been asked to prepare the database recording information in details including whether the foreigners have been staying here illegally.
A senior SPA officer said that a section of foreign nationals have been involved with different crimes like making and supplying counterfeit foreign currency notes, illegal voice over internet protocol (VoIP) trade, drug trafficking and smuggling.
In 2013, at least 200 foreigners involved with crimes were arrested from different parts of the capital. Most of them either entered Bangladesh with tourist visas or overstaying, he said.
Besides, he said, a large number of foreigners have long been doing jobs illegally in private companies and corporate bodies without any work permit.
Though there is no exact database about the activities of foreign nationals, he suspects that the number of foreigners, including Indians, working in Bangladesh would be about one lakh.
Intelligence sources said that they were residing in the capital’s Uttara, Banani, Gulshan, Baridhara, Rampura, Karwan Bazar and Farmgate areas.
Most of them are from Nigeria, Ghana, Congo, Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan, the Philippines, Algeria, Sudan, Tanzania and Uganda.
