Offending act at border
THE recent incident of lynching of three Bangladeshis in Tripura is as condemnable as it is worrisome. Amidst talk about growing close relationship between Bangladesh and India, one wonders how such gruesome violation of norms of handling trespassers could have happened. This has added a new dimension to the recurrent border killing incidents.
In brief, the law on handling unauthorised trespassers says that if citizens of a country illegally cross the border into another country, it would be considered trespassing and those persons should be handed over to the respective civilian authorities. It is clear and very simple to understand.
Governments of Bangladesh have been lodging protest for years against trigger happy attitude of BSF. In every bilateral meeting, from border forces level to higher political level, border killing issue apparently receives priority in building relations of trust and respect between the two neighbours. But very little has changed. In recent times, though border killing has come down, it continues to happen at regular intervals.
Given the historic reality of arbitrary demarcation of our border, border trespassing in both ways is very common. Besides visiting relatives who reside along the border, unauthorised crossings take place largely due to various quasi-legal or informal trading. This is characterised as 'informal trading' rather than 'illegal trading' because there is wide participation by locals of both sides and the trade generally goes around custom posts and operates in collusion with the anti-smuggling enforcement agencies on both sides.
Cattle trading has the lion's share in informal trading. And most of the fatal incidents happen to the cattle bootleggers. Bangladesh government legalised cattle trade in 1993, but Indian ban on the export of cattle encourages illegal business.
Informal trade-related border crossing is further supplemented by labour migration, which is also legally restricted. It happens from both India and Bangladesh, largely due to little scope for urban migration. A World Bank study showed that a section of Bangladeshis and Indians who live on either side of Benapole-Petrapole border engage in employment in Kolkata or Jessore rather than in Dhaka or Delhi, which are farther away.
Above mentioned dimensions of trespassing clearly show that it is very natural and common to any border area of the world. One surely misses this obvious natural dimension when it is only looked upon as a criminal act. The situation further worsens when certain groups try to politicise this issue. In a recent election campaign BJP nominated PM candidate Narendra Modi vowed at a gathering of raucous crowd in Assam: "You have to decide whether you will continue to tolerate Bangladeshi harassment or put an end to it."
This sort of attitude may create grounds for incidents of lynching. It deepens mistrust between neighbours. Border management should be considered as a human phenomenon rather than being bogged down in inimical treatment.
The writer is Sr. Editorial Assistant, The Daily Star.
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