JALPAIGURI PETRAPOLE: Not less than 1,000 Bangladeshis, principally Hindus, tried to cross over and search refuge in India on Friday in Sitalkuchi of Bengal’s Cooch Behar district. BSF officers struggled to carry them again, with officers describing this as the biggest group from the strife-wracked nation to go to India prior to now few weeks.
Such was the desperation among the many batch making an attempt to hotfoot their method throughout the border in Pathantuli village of Cooch Behar’s Kashiyar Baruni space that they waited hours within the waters of a rivulet throughout the fence.Some had been heard chanting “Jai Shri Ram” slogans.
BSF personnel stopped these individuals from crossing the fencing at 150 yards from the zero level — the no-man’s land on the frontier. Regardless of a number of appeals from BSF troopers, the group was not able to return to their houses in Doi Khawa and Genduguri villages of Bangladesh’s Rangpur district, citing “grave perils and torture”.
BSF officers stated that they had requested Border Guards Bangladesh (BGB) to take the individuals again. “This rising problem is new to the BSF. Confronted with the fragile process of managing humanitarian issues whereas guaranteeing border safety, BSF officers and males demonstrated distinctive professionalism,” a BSF launch acknowledged. At Petrapole in Bengal’s North 24 Parganas, a gentle trickle of individuals from Bangladesh has continued prior to now few days.
Bhakti Dhali, a resident of Bharatkathi village in Bangladesh’s Pirojpur, 180km from the Petrapole border, and her husband Parimal Dhali entered India on a medical visa that they had from an earlier go to a couple of weeks in the past. In accordance with Bhakti, that they had not slept on any of the nights since Aug 3. They had been awake on Friday, too, leaving at dawn. “It was a nightmare on the evening of Aug 3. A big mob surrounded our neighbourhood, all of us being members of (former PM Sheikh Hasina’s) Awami League.
The mob demanded Rs 12,000 from the Awami League’s gram panchayat and our kin. They gave me 5 minutes. I managed to rearrange Rs 4,500. The mob then went on a rampage,” stated Bhakti.
Identical to Bhakti, Partha Das from Pirojpur and Mahima Akhter reached India by way of Petrapole on Friday. All had witnessed the violence from shut quarters.
