Indian police have begun rounding up beggars in the southern city of Hyderabad ahead of first daughter Ivanka Trump's visit, according to CNN.

Police officials told the network that the measure is unrelated to Trump's visit, and instead will be extended in the future as part of the country's war against poverty and criminal gangs.

"It's a permanent drive," an Indian official told CNN. "The government, since 30 years, have been trying to figure out what to do about them."

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The same official added that the mafia and other organized criminal gangs kidnap people and force them to beg on the streets.

"There is a mafia or a network behind this who force people to beg or kidnap some children and force them into begging," the official said.

Begging has been illegal in the city since 1977. Ivanka Trump is scheduled to attend the Global Entrepreneurship Summit in the city at the end of November.

Police officials say the move is not in response to Trump's visit. But police only began rounding up beggars last month, despite the law being in place for decades.

A second police official told CNN that the government has prepared adequate housing and supplies for the beggars. The official noted that those who were rounded up in the operation were being held not in prisons, but rather inside the same compounds as the prisons in a separate area.

"All the facilities are there — security, medical, food — and all the basic amenities are being made to take care of the inmates," the official said.

Trump has sat in for her father or represented the administration at foreign events before. In July, German Chancellor Angela Merkel defended Ivanka Trump when she sat in for the president at the G20 summit in Germany.

"The delegations themselves decide, should the president not be present for a meeting, who will then take over and sit in the chair,” Merkel said at the time.

“Ivanka Trump was part and parcel of the American delegation, so that is something that other delegations also do. It’s very well known that she works at the White House and is also engaged in certain initiatives.”