Lives At Stake: India Must Allow Entry To Bangladeshi Hindus And Awami League Leaders

Hundreds of Bangladeshi Hindus who have tried to enter India through various points along the 4,096-kilometre-long Indo-Bangladesh border have been pushed back by the Border Security Force (BSF). 

Many Awami League leaders and functionaries have also been prevented from entering India by the BSF and have been handed over to the Border Guards Bangladesh (BGB), which has detained them. 

The BSF’s act of disallowing people fleeing for their lives to enter India is in violation of the internationally recognised principle of non-refoulement, which guarantees that no one should be forced to return to a country where they would face torture, cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment, and other irreparable harm.

Hindus in Bangladesh have faced horrific attacks since 5 August, after Sheikh Hasina fled the country. Some Hindus have been killed, and hundreds of homes and properties belonging to Hindus have been destroyed. Hindu temples have been attacked and desecrated. 

Awami League (AL) leaders and functionaries have also been hunted down and killed mercilessly; many videos of such horrific killings have been in circulation over the past two days. The houses and properties of thousands of AL functionaries and even supporters have been destroyed. 

Denying Bangladeshi Hindus and AL leaders entry into India amounts to cruelty. They are seeking refuge in India to save their lives. They face the prospect of dying ghastly deaths at the hands of murderous mobs of radical Islamists who still have a free run of the country and are baying for blood.

Bangladeshi Hindus and AL functionaries have been trying since the evening of 5 August to enter India, mainly through Tripura and Bengal. The BSF has prevented their entry and has even fired warning shots in the air at one place (the Mukesh border post in the North Dinajpur district of Bengal) to prevent a group of over 200 Bangladeshi Hindus and AL functionaries from entering the country on the afternoon of 7 August.

BSF officials told Swarajya that the 200-odd Bangladeshis, all of them residents of Thakurgaon district, are still massed near the international border and are refusing to disperse. 

The asylum-seekers who have had to flee their homes to save themselves — most have nothing on them except the clothes they were wearing when they escaped the mobs — have braved torrential rains throughout Wednesday night and are refusing to return despite the BGB assuring them of safety. 

A group of over 600 Bangladeshis — Hindus and AL functionaries — tried to cross the international border at Dharadharpara in North Bengal’s Jalpaiguri district on Wednesday. Since that stretch of the border is unfenced, BSF jawans formed a human chain to stop them from entering India. 

Till reports last came in, the 600-odd Bangladeshis are still waiting at the ‘zero point’ of the border and are refusing to go back. Another group of 300-odd Bangladeshis tried to cross over through the international border along Nagar Berubari in Jalpaiguri district. They, too, are amassed at the border and are refusing to return. 

About a thousand Hindu residents of six villages (Lahiripara, Chirakuti, Bania Para, Balgram, and Sundara Para) in Bangladesh’s Panchagarh district along the border with Jalpaiguri have been seeking entry into India. They fled their villages after Islamists attacked them and torched their houses. 

One of the many AL leaders who had tried to enter India was former member of Parliament (MP) Kamarul Arefin from Kushtia (along the border with Bengal’s Nadia district). Arefin, along with his wife and two daughters, tried to enter India through the Benapole-Petrapole border post in the North 24 Parganas district late Tuesday evening. 

The former MP and his family were detained by the BSF and handed over to the BGB on Wednesday morning. They pleaded with the BSF to allow them to enter and said that they would be killed if they were forced to return. But their pleas were turned down. 

Two more senior AL functionaries who tried to cross over through the Darshana-Gede border post in North 24 Parganas district on Wednesday were detained and handed over to the BGB, which arrested them and took them away. 

These two AL functionaries, who were with their families, told the BSF that their homes were attacked and some of their family members were killed Tuesday night. But the BSF remained unmoved and sent them back, perhaps to face certain death.

Hundreds of Bangladeshi Hindus and AL functionaries fleeing for their lives have been stopped by the BSF along the international border at Tripura from entering India. 

It is understandable that in the absence of express instructions from the Union government allowing Bangladeshi Hindus and AL functionaries entry into India, the BSF has to stop their illegal entry into the country. Not doing so would amount to failure to perform its duties by the border guarding force. 

But the BSF can be humane and provide shelter and protection to the asylum-seekers even at zero point. And the Union government would not only be failing in its duty by disallowing the Hindus and AL functionaries from entering India, but would also have blood on its hands if any of those who are being denied entry are killed or harmed in Bangladesh. 

The BSF’s conduct is in stark contrast to that of the Assam Rifles (AR) that guard the Indo-Myanmar border. After fighting between Chin militant groups and the Myanmar armed forces intensified last year, the AR merrily allowed tens of thousands of Kuki-Chin refugees fleeing the hostilities and attacks by the Myanmar army to enter Manipur and Mizoram. 

An estimated 40,000 Kuki-Chin refugees are currently sheltered in Mizoram, and a few thousand have illegally settled down in the Kuki-dominated areas of Manipur. 

The Union government made a feeble attempt to put pressure on the Mizoram government to send the refugees back to Myanmar but meekly backed down after Mizoram chief minister Lalduhawma refused point blank.

If Kuki-Chin refugees from Myanmar are being allowed to stay in Manipur and Mizoram, there is no reason why besieged Bangladeshi Hindus and AL functionaries should be prevented from entering the country when their lives are in imminent danger in Bangladesh. 

This duplicity should end, and New Delhi should ask the BSF to allow the entry of Bangladeshi Hindus and AL functionaries. Of course, all of them have to be properly documented and should be kept in temporary camps that should be immediately set up in areas near the international border. 

Indian security forces, including the police forces of the respective states, should guard these camps to prevent the exit of those sheltered there. And once normalcy returns to Bangladesh, the refugees can be sent back to Bangladesh after extracting express guarantees of their safety from Bangladeshi authorities. 

Also, those Hindus who are unwilling to return to Bangladesh should be rehabilitated in India and, eventually, be given Indian citizenship. 

As for providing shelter to AL functionaries who are Muslims, it would not only be the right thing to do but would also generate goodwill among them that New Delhi can reap in the future. The AL, after all, is a major political force in Bangladesh, and even though it is now in disarray, it will surely be back in the reckoning in the country in the future.