Balurghat, Dec. 30: The harried residents of border villages, grappling with security regulations of the Border Security Force, now have another problem to contend with: barbed-wire fencing.

With some 130 km of the 252-km-long Indo-Bangla border in South Dinajpur already fenced in, more than 150 families living within 150 yards of the zero point have no access to their homes and farmlands for the better part of the day. The BSF has imposed restrictions on their visits.

“The security fence has brought with it new problems,” said Sunil Kumar Pal, the district magistrate. “Many of the area residents are stranded, with their land or homes falling on the other side of the fence.”

The gaps in the fence, locally known as gates, are closed and shut at stipulated hours to let the villagers in and out. The gates are the only way for villagers to get home and to their land. The gates are closed at sundown.

Farmers, forced to leave their harvest unattended through the night, often have it stolen. Those who have houses on the other side of the fence also had them burgled by miscreants who sneaked in from Bangladesh. “If we want to guard our harvest through the night by staying on in the field, Bangladesh Rifles jawans give us a harrowing time,” said Haran Pal of Madhabpur, a border village.

Villagers said they had no one to turn to. “No body is willing to receive our complaints and no body pays us compensation,” Pal said.

District magistrate Pal said he had already held a meeting with all eight block development officers in Gangarampur to try and end the “misery” of the border villagers. “I have asked the BDOs to make a list of the affected families and see if they could be relocated,” he said.

Gangrampur BDO Abhijit Bhattacharya said rehabilitating some 44 families from Teliapukur area alone would cost the government around Rs 5 lakh. “We are working ways to use funds from the Indira Awas Yojana to build new homes. We would try and allot vested land to the affected residents.”

Balurghat MP Ranen Burman said he would take up the issue with deputy prime minister L.K.Advani and ask him to help relocate the affected villagers.

He said he would also request Advani, who is Union home minister, to make sure that theBSF jawans did not harass the villagers. “The relationship between the BSF and villagers could improve only if the harassment stops,” he said.