Cooch Behar, June 2: Shadows shorten as the sun climbs the sky. Bimala Das clasps her wailing three-month-old grandson, closer, covering him as best she can with her sari, pleading with the border security guards manning a gate on the barb wired Indo-Bangla border in Sitai block, to let her through.
“Amay jete dao babu. Ore mayer kache dudh khaiye ekhuni fire ashbo,” (Please open the gates and let me through. I will come back after his mother nurses him) Bimala pleads, pointing to her daughter-in-law, working in the fields a short distance away.
The tear-streaked face and the inconsolable wails of the child have no effect on the jawans. Neither does Bimala’s voter’s identity card, proof of her Indian citizenship.
Two hours later, the child has cried himself to sleep. A forlorn Bimala walks back home. The child will have to wait till evening, when his mother will return once the guards open the gates.
Barbed wires, border guards and burglars from Bangladesh: these make up the nightmares of residents of the villages dotting the Indo-Bangla border in Cooch Behar. Toofangunj, Dinhata, or Sitai, it is the same story.
“Border security guards are the villains during the day. Thieves from Bangladesh take over from them at night,” a resident of Kayeterbari village said. “The kaanta taar (barb wire) has only made life easier for the Bangladeshi dacoits and cattle rustlers.”
Cut off from their farmland by the fences, farmers can only pray that their harvest remains untouched after nightfall. But prayers are rarely answered in this “godforsaken” land.
“Paddy, rice, potatoes… everything that we grow so painstakingly are taken away by thieves from across the border,” Animul Haque, a resident of Krishnapur village in Toofangunj subdivision said. “A jawan’s duty is limited to harassing us.”
Speaking of harassment, Haque was once caught without his voter’s identity card a few days ago.
“Though they see me every morning and evening, they called me an infiltrator and kept me tied to a nearby tree all night.” Only after local MLA Tamser Ali intervened the next day, did the guards release him.
Each resident, in every border village, has a story to tell. While some have been assaulted “for no reason”, others have been detained without any charge against them. Others watch helplessly as jawans pass lewd comments when women pass by.
“The fence has robbed us of our property, peace of mind and security. But above all, we have lost the right to live with dignity,” said Anwar Ali, a resident of Balabhut village in Toofangunj.
MLA Nripen Roy said: “The BSF reign supreme. They open the gates as and when they like though they have orders to open them four times a day, for a period of two-hours. We have been flooded with complaints.”
