The fenced India-Bangladesh border and (above) Teresa Hembrom, at Pakuria in North Dinajpur. Pictures by Ashok Sinha

You may call Teresa Hembrom, 21, and her brother Marshal, 25, the country’s last citizens. The barbed-wire fence separating India and Bangladesh virtually grazes their door at the North Dinajpur village of Pakuria.

What this means for the siblings and their 55-year-old mother Tarshila in everyday terms is that they cannot attend the call of nature in the 16 hours between 4pm and 8am.

That is, from the time the gate of the fence closes in the evening till it opens in the morning.

During the eight hours the gate stays open, all the villagers can go and work in their fields that mostly lie beyond the fence, erected 200 metres inside the Indian border in keeping with international rules. They can also relieve themselves at a corner of their plots.

But the problem for Teresa’s family is that the whole of its five acres of land lies beyond the fence. There’s not an inch left between the house and the fence — and homes in this underdeveloped village have no toilets.

“It’s virtually a catastrophe if we want to relieve ourselves at odd hours (between 4pm and 8am). We really feel helpless,” Marshal said.

It’s worst on Sundays, when the fence is never opened, which means the family must endure a 40-hour period without a “toilet break”. So what do they do? They are too embarrassed to answer.

Almost all the 45 households in this village of 300 people experience the same torment. Soren Kandan, 35, and his family are a little luckier because they have about 20 square metres of land between their home and the fence, the rest of their six acres lying beyond the barbed wire.

There is a road flanking Pakuria on the west but it is constantly patrolled by BSF jawans. Beyond the road is a settlement whose residents would not want the villagers to relieve themselves in their locality.

The Indian government erected the fence about 15 years ago. Within the 8am-4pm window, from Monday to Saturday, the BSF allows the villagers to go with their oxen and cows to work their 680 acres of fields that grow wheat, paddy, potato, mustard and pulses.

“This allows us to eat, but it is harder here to attend the call of nature than to get food,” Tarshila said.

It has become an election issue for Pakuria, which falls in the Goalpokhar Assembly seat and went to the polls on Monday. The villagers say their current MLA, Ali Imam Ramz “Victor”, had launched an agitation demanding the fence be shifted a bit further from the village.

Unfortunately, they say, this time the Forward Bloc has fielded Victor from neighbouring Chakulia, a seat that came up after delimitation.

“Our new candidate from Goalpokhar, Arif Hussein, will work for the cause of the Pakuria villagers after he wins, as strongly as Victor had done. We have asked the villagers to vote for the party again, and promised them that the CPM and the Forward Bloc would keep fighting for their cause,” said Saifur Rahman, a Bloc leader, at the CPM office in nearby Debiganj.

The BSF, however, said the politicians were deceiving the villagers. “They can’t get the fence pushed or removed, for it has been erected in keeping with an agreement between the civil and military authorities of India and Bangladesh and the rules relating to international borders,” a senior officer said.

S.K. Demta, BSF assistant commandant at Kukradha outpost 1km west of Pakuria, said: “We let the villagers go and work in their fields within the stipulated hours after checking their voter ID cards, land possession records and other details. That’s all we can do, for we must ensure that the villagers are not deprived of their land and property and, at the same time, check infiltration (by Bangladeshis) and smuggling.”

Demta and his men proudly declared they had put a complete stop to infiltration and smuggling of cattle and other goods since the fence was erected.

Told about Pakuria’s problem, a jawan smiled and said it was for the civil authorities to solve.

“We are not supposed to deal with this. Of course, we help the villagers when they fall ill by treating them in our camp or taking them to nearby hospitals.”