Is it greener on the other side? Across the algae-topped canal is Bangladesh. Telegraph picture

Hudodigambarpur (On the Indo-Bangla border), May 7: Ten-year-old Jaba Mondal lives in Nadia, but goes to a Bangladeshi school because the nearest one in India is 6 km away.

She’s not alone. Parents of around 1,000 children here prefer Bangladeshi institutions, which are only yards away.

Ironically, the Indian border fencing has almost made the residents of 15 villages foreigners at home. The barbed wire mesh, which had to be put up exactly 150 metres from the Zero Line according to norms, has left these villages out.

Jaba was admitted to the nearest Indian school at Khalboalia five years ago.

But the journey by foot after crossing the gate to India and returning home before it closes for the day proved too much and she refused to go to school one day.

So, like many others at Hudodigambarpur, Jaba’s parents got her admitted to a primary school at Chuadanga in Bangladesh.

She now crosses a narrow canal in a dingi — a small wooden boat — and reaches school in 10 minutes.

“My earlier school started at 10 am and ended at 4 pm. If I walked slowly, I reached the gate after 6, by which time it would be closed,” said Jaba.

A recent BSF diktat against attending Bangladeshi schools has, however, made her future uncertain. Jaba has been forced to stop going to school.

“What could we do? How could we afford not to listen to the BSF?” asked her father Lakshman, who tills a two- cottah plot outside the official Indian territory.

Some children are still attending primary schools at Chuadanga, though.

“As long as Bangladesh allows us, we’ll send our children there to study. I can’t let my daughter walk 12 km every day,” said 13-year-old Santana Mondal’s father.

The panchayat leaders of Hudodigambarpur pleaded helplessness. “Why can’t the administration set up schools nearby? We’ve urged the administration repeatedly for schools in the area, but in vain,” said Sukumar Biswas.

“We cannot let Indian children go and study in Bangladesh. We have strict instructions from our superiors to stop it. We’ve asked villagers not to allow this illegal practice,” said K.K. Majumder, the BSF deputy commandant at Gede.

The Nadia primary school council said there “are difficulties” in setting up schools so close to the border. “Who will go to teach there?” asked Bibhash Biswas, the chairman of the district council.

The BSF, however, offered some hope. Majumder said the force was aware of the administration’s reluctance to set up schools for the border children.

The schools could be built with funds from the Border Area Development Project.