Indian police foil demo for basic rights; 20 hurt

A section of residents of now-defunct enclaves who chose to go to India have started a movement demanding basic rights, including permanent accommodation, employment and healthcare.

As many as 206 residents who went from Bangladesh are living in a temporary camp at Mekholiganj Bhotbari under Cooch Behar district in West Bengal.

More than 100 men and women have been continuing a peaceful movement before the office of Mekholiganj sub-division administrator.

They alleged when some women protesters tried to enter the sub-division administrator's office for talks on Friday, police baton-charged them, injuring 20. Seventeen of them were admitted to Mekholiganj Sub-Divisional Hospital and Jalpaiguri Hospital, they added.

Sub-Division Administrator Apritim Ghosh denied the allegation. He claimed the agitators had tried to enter and ransack his office and the police just removed them.

The All India Left Front and BJP have meanwhile called for separate hartal programmes in connection with the incident.

Local Left Front leader and former minister Paresh Chandra Adhikary said both the central and state governments have pocketed political benefits cashing in on enclave dwellers. In reality, those people are still not free like the last 68 years, he observed.

BJP Mekholiganj South Mondal President Dariram Roy said the central government had given adequate allocation for these people, but the Trinamool state government had not ensured their benefits.

He alleged the Trinamool government never went beyond the equation of vote. Before the election the leaders flocked to the enclaves, but now they have forgot about them, he further alleged.

A women agitator told The Daily Star over phone that they were living at Mekholiganj Bhotbari temporary camp, from where they would be shifted to remote Panishala.

She said despite financial allocation by the central government they were being rehabilitated in a place with very poor communication. She also claimed the administration did not pay any heed to their hunger strike for last several days.

After implementation of the historic border agreement between Bangladesh and India in 2015, people of both sides living in the adversely possessed enclaves got their chance to return to their homeland.

Though no Bangladeshis living in enclaves inside India returned to their homeland, 926 Indians living in enclaves inside Bangladesh returned to India. They have been kept in government camps in Dinhata, Haldibari and Mekholiganj under Cooch Behar.

Permanent camps have been built at Dinhata and Haldibari, but construction of a permanent camp at Panishala has started to shift 206 people living in Mekholiganj.