Agartala: The Sub Divisional Magistrate (SDM) of Sonamura wrote District Magistrate, Sepahijala to rescue an Indian villager of Sahapur locality in Sobhapur panchayat bordering area under Sonamura police station who was allegedly caught up by Border Guard of Bangladesh (BGB), a week ago for illegally entering into their territory.
According to report, soon after the detention of the victim identified as Rashed Alam (35), BGB handed him over to police and subsequently landed into Comilla jail of central Bangladesh accusing him of several charges including carrying contraband items. The victim’s family claims Rashed is one of the hundreds of villagers residing on no man’s land along the actual border line without any defence.
Unlike other days, on June 7 morning, Rashed allegedly walked down behind his house and was caught by BGB jawans and taken to their camps at Bibirbazar under Comilla district. The family members immediately reported the matter to BSF, local police and SDM. However, BSF officials have taken up the matter with their BGB counterpart but reportedly, Bangladesh denies it.
The police said a good number of houses in Sahapur fall at no man’s land where single line wire fencing has been contemplated for past many years. The BSF posts and sentry sheds are falling about 200 metres inside India and the families have been living with the Bangladeshi villagers literally. Even for shopping and selling of their agri-produces mainly with the Bangladeshi villagers and BSF has no control over their movement.
The detention of Rashed from Sahapur village by BGB and sending him to jail seems to be the first incident, which triggered a serious reaction among the villagers. Rashed’s wife Khursheda Begam alleged even after a week Indian authority has not initiated any step to bring back her husband, according to her, Rashed was not detained but abducted by BGB suspecting him of an informer of their top bosses about their involvement of trans-border crime.
She recalled that two days before the incident, Rashed had an altercation with a BGB jawan who allegedly prevented him from taking bath in a pond belonging to Bangladesh. In the morning on June 7, a Bangladeshi citizen came to sell a mattress in her house and they had a fight over the price and quality. After some time, two Bangladeshi citizens dragged him to BGB but family members failed to save him.
