On the midnight of September 23, two women, Sabana Begum (40) and Rehana Khatoon (30), were intercepted by the Border Security Force (BSF) near border outpost of Jeetpur in West Bengal’s North 24 Parganas district while illegally crossing the International Border from India to Bangladesh. Upon interrogation, they both said that they had come to India six months ago, had been working in Bengaluru, and were heading back home when they were apprehended. Similarly, on September 28, four Bangladeshi nationals were intercepted near the border outposts of Jeetpur and Ranghat, also in the same district. They also revealed that they had come to India some time ago in search of work in different cities and were returning to Bangladesh.
Following normal procedure, all the six of them would have been handed over to the police to languish in jail for several years for illegally crossing the border. They would have added to the number of foreigners already sent to West Bengal’s correctional homes. But this time, the BSF authorities, instead of handing them over to the police, arranged meetings with their counterparts in Bangladesh, the Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB), and handed them over to the Bangladeshi authorities.
