for alleged links with the narcotics trade and possession of “objectionable documents.”
Mohammed Mahmud Azar-mehr, 22, was put on a plane for Iran last Wednesday morning. He is just the latest in a long strong string of Iranians being expelled from the India by police in the city of Pune. Iranians are deported by the Pune cops at the rate one every four days.
According to the police in Pune, Azarmehr came to Pune on a student visa in 2010 and was pursuing a bachelor’s degree in commerce.
Acting on a tip-off, a team of counter-narcotics police officers searched Azarmehr’s residence last Monday. Police had information that Azarmehr was selling opium at his residence. During the search, police said they found chillums-smoking pipes used by monks and drug users-in addition to some objectionable documents, which an officer did not further describe.
Inspector Sunil Tambe told The Indian Express the police had been keeping a watch on Azarmehr’s movements for the last six months.
Pune, formerly Poona, is a noted educational center with nine universities that have drawn many Iranian students. It is in the same state as Mumbai.
Foreign nationals in the city, particularly Iranians, have been under surveillance by the anti-terrorist and anti-narcotics branches of the police. The watch on Iranians has intensified since the bomb attack on an Israeli diplomat in Delhi in February, The Indian Express said..
Days ago, the Pune police deported another Iranian, Hamid Kashkouli, a PhD student at the University of Pune, for alleged violation of research visa rules. Police said instead of working on his doctorate, he was indulging in “undesirable activities” and had not submitted a progress report on his thesis for the last four years.
In 2011, of the 302 foreigners booted out of India by the Pune police, 80 or just over a quarter were Iranians. That was an expulsion of an Iranian every 110 hours.
