 "India’s Border Security Force along Bangladesh border. File Image / PTI")
As the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) process comes into effect across several states in India, people are reportedly crossing over to Bangladesh amid fears of getting caught. An Indian Express report shed light on the situation at the Hakimpur border outpost in West Bengal. Men, women and children are squatting at the border as they wait for their turn to cross the country.
“We are scared. That is why we packed our bags and came here,” Abdul Momin, one of the people crossing the border, told The Indian Express. He claimed that he came to India from Satkhira district in Bangladesh five years ago after “paying a tout at the border”.
Many rushed to the border soon after the Election Commission of India started holding the SIR of electoral rolls in West Bengal ahead of next year’s polls.
In Bengal, there have been fears of the authorities conducting the National Register of Citizens (NRC), even though the process is underway in neighbouring Assam, not in West Bengal. The fears can be because the ruling TMC in the state has likened the SIR survey to “backdoor implementation of NRC” in the state.
Over 400 people crossed the border from Hakimpur in one week
BSF personnel at the Hakimpur border told The Indian Express that over 400 people, including children, have trickled to the Hakimpur outpost and all are ready to cross the border. The authorities have been conducting stringent checks of vehicles, e-rickshaws, cars, and motorbikes.
The BSF official noted that there has been a considerable increase in the number of illegal Bangladeshi citizens returning to their country from West Bengal. “Since SIR started in the first week of November, the daily outward movement of people was less and in double digits. But now every day, around 150 to 200 illegal Bangladeshis are trying to leave India,” a senior BSF official told The Indian Express.
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A separate reportage by CNN-News18 dealt with the story of a Bangladeshi person who was using his Indian father-in-law’s name to make an Indian Voter I Card in India. Two individuals in the Shrirampur area of Uluberia Block 2 have allegedly used the names of their fathers-in-law in place of their fathers’ names to obtain voter identity cards.
One among them was identified as Mohammad Khalil Molla, who has admitted that he is a Bangladeshi national. He told CNN-News18 that he came to India 35 years ago. After initially staying in Topsia, then in Howrah and Amta, he finally settled in Shrirampur in Uluberia. There, he married a local woman and used his father-in-law’s name as his father’s name for a voter card.
In another case, locals have alleged that a man named Sekh Rezaul Mondal also used his father-in-law’s name as his father’s name to obtain a voter identity card. Residents told CNN-News18 that they want the government to take action against anyone who has entered India illegally. The incident has created a stir in the Shrirampur area under the Rajapur Police Station.