Desperate to escape to India, Bangladeshis wait in rivulet

JALPAIGURI PETRAPOLE: At least 1,000 Bangladeshis, mostly Hindus, attempted to cross over and seek refuge in India on Friday in Sitalkuchi of Bengal’s Cooch Behar district. BSF officials struggled to hold them back, with officers describing this as the largest group from the strife-wracked nation to head to India in the past few weeks.
Such was the desperation among the batch trying to hotfoot their way across the border in Pathantuli village of Cooch Behar’s Kashiyar Baruni area that they waited hours in the waters of a rivulet across the fence.Some were heard chanting “Jai Shri Ram” slogans.
BSF personnel stopped these people from crossing the fencing at 150 yards from the zero point — the no-man’s land at the frontier. Despite several appeals from BSF troopers, the group was not ready to return to their homes in Doi Khawa and Genduguri villages of Bangladesh’s Rangpur district, citing “grave perils and torture”.
BSF officials said they had requested Border Guards Bangladesh (BGB) to take the people back. “This emerging challenge is new to the BSF. Faced with the delicate task of managing humanitarian concerns while ensuring border security, BSF officers and men demonstrated exceptional professionalism,” a BSF release stated. At Petrapole in Bengal’s North 24 Parganas, a steady trickle of people from Bangladesh has continued in the past few days.
Bhakti Dhali, a resident of Bharatkathi village in Bangladesh’s Pirojpur, 180km from the Petrapole border, and her husband Parimal Dhali entered India on a medical visa they had from an earlier visit a few weeks ago. According to Bhakti, they had not slept on any of the nights since Aug 3. They were awake on Friday, too, leaving at daybreak. “It was a nightmare on the night of Aug 3. A large mob surrounded our neighbourhood, all of us being members of (former PM Sheikh Hasina’s) Awami League.
The mob demanded Rs 12,000 from the Awami League’s gram panchayat and our kin. They gave me 5 minutes. I managed to arrange Rs 4,500. The mob then went on a rampage,” said Bhakti.
Just like Bhakti, Partha Das from Pirojpur and Mahima Akhter reached India through Petrapole on Friday. All had witnessed the violence from close quarters.