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Gulf-bound Bangladeshis take perilous route

By Our Staff Reporter

SAMBA (JAMMU) DEC. 12. The spurt in attempts by Bangladeshis to cross over to Pakistan after infiltrating into India has caused concern to the security agencies. In recent times, there has been an increase in the number of Bangladeshis, at the Indo-Pakistan border in Jammu, who, forced by poverty, attempted to illegally cross over or come back.

In the early nineties, the movement of Bangladeshis to the other side was not taken seriously. In the present scenario, however, with troops maintaining maximum alert at the borders, the Bangladeshis' attempts to cross over have sometimes been fatal. Many have also been shot dead while trying to come back.

In the last two years, around 400 Bangladeshis have been apprehended while attempting to cross over to the Punjab province of Pakistan. Sometimes, even women and children have been caught. With the onset of winter, around 109 Bangladesh nationals have already been caught and according to BSF officials, more arrests are expected.

A group was caught at the Samba border recently, having first arrived in Kolkata and then making its way to Jammu and Kashmir via Delhi. The porous nature of the Indo-Bangladesh border makes the infiltration easier. Most of those apprehended are from the rural areas. "One of the reasons that they cross over to Pakistan is that they are told by the touts that it is easy for them to go to Gulf countries from there," says a police official.

Catching the touts is an arduous task, as they use fake names and most of the time, form part of a long chain. There have also been incidents when touts have left their victims at bus stands near the borders and usually these are caught much before they attempt to cross over. The BSF Inspector-General, Dileep Trivedi, told The Hindu that they used to be suspected of spying. But now, it is concluded that most of them are coming for economic reasons.

The Jammu frontier is the favourite route for the Bangladeshis. The sectors used quite often for infiltration and exfiltration are Samba and R.S. Pura. The reason for the preference is that firstly, it is porous and has a lot of river ravines making crossing over to the other side easier. In the past, several Bangladeshis were caught in the Punjab province also while crossing over.

Now that it is totally fenced, it has become almost impossible to cross the border from there. Even the international border at Rajasthan is difficult to cross due to the inhospitable terrain.

Strangely, there also have been incidents of infiltration of Bangladeshis here. But their entry into India from Pakistan has often been fatal as militants too use the International Border as a route for infiltration.

"It is difficult to distinguish between a militant and Bangladesh national and also we have the added disadvantage that it is night time when they try to cross over," says a senior officer at the border outpost.

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