People wait at Petrapole to cross over to Bangladesh on Wednesday. Picture by Amit Datta

Petrapole, Feb. 25: Regular traffic dipped at Petrapole today but as the day wore on, alarmed Bangladeshis visiting Calcutta made a dash for the border to get back home before things got worse.

Senior BSF officials camping at the border outpost tried to claim things were normal, but junior officials said human and trade traffic from Bangladesh were badly hit.

The 40km-stretch of 36 BoP (border outpost at Petrapole) — from Jayantipur near Basirhat to Petrapole — is manned by a battalion of 1,200 soldiers, of whom 40 per cent are always kept in reserve.

A senior BSF official said the entire reserve force was patrolling today. “Infiltrators might try to take advantage of the confusion and slip into India.”

The Petrapole border sees almost 500 trucks enter Bangladesh every day with electronic goods, automobile parts and edibles, while 300 cross into India carrying jute.

“Today, only 300 trucks entered Bangladesh and 50 have entered India till 6pm,” said a BSF soldier keeping watch over a 50-metre stretch of no-man’s land that separates the two countries. The border is open to traffic between 6am and 6pm.

As the day drew to an end, many Bangladeshis in Calcutta scrambled to get back home. Ashraful Rezzaq, who had put up at a hotel on Zakaria Street with wife Rubina and daughter Rukaiyya, took a Tata Sumo to the border.

“In case the revolt acquires bigger proportions, the border might be sealed. We want to reach home before anything like that happens,” said the businessman who had come to Calcutta to consult a doctor for his ailing wife.

He was in a queue of 20 people awaiting clearance to cross over to Benapole, the Bangladeshi side of the border.