Author: Sunando Sarkar
Publication: The Telegraph
Date: December 25, 2002
URL: http://www.telegraphindia.com/1021225/asp/frontpage/story_1513956.asp
Hounded Bangladeshis flee to 'relief
camps' in Bengal
"We are going to take your head
if you don't part with your land." Faced with the grim choices she had,
Shefali Ray ran. She started on her journey - from Madra village of Khulna
district in Bangladesh to a place near Gobrapur village of North 24-Parganas
in India - before dawn the evening after she learnt what fate had in store
for her.
She reached India with her family
and the clothes she wore. Thedalal (a member of a "syndicate" that arranged
for the cross-border journey) took everything, including the earrings she
was wearing. But she was lucky.
Bijaya Baidya reached here without
her husband; he was beheaded while returning from the village market.
Siddheswar Biswas reached here with
his immediate family but without the niece who was "just picked up and
vanished one evening".
In a throwback to the immediate
aftermath of the 2001 election in Bangladesh, which saw the Bangladesh
Nationalist Party come to power with the help of assorted Islamic fundamentalist
organisations, more and more Bangladeshis are flowing into Bengal now.
In almost every case, the two most
vulnerable entities - land and women - were made the target, uprooting
a people. The number that is coming over to this side of the border would
not be insignificant.
Within a 5-km radius along the road
that connects Bongaon and Bagdah, three "relief camps" have sprung up,
at Kundipur, Patra and Colonypara - each with at least 100 men, women and
children. There are many more who have taken shelter in the homes of relatives
who crossed over last year.
All the "relief camps", like the
one at Kundipur, are meagre affairs with refugees huddling together under
a wall-less tarpaulin shed. With nobody sure of the administration's response
- that of the ruling party hasn't appeared encouraging - the men and women
don't want to attract attention though it's difficult for 100 people to
stay concealed for long.
So it's the shed for the children
- some of them less than a year old and without any warm clothes - and
the women, with the men spending the night under the cold December sky.
"I don't feel the cold," Siddheshwar,
55, said. "I can't really feel anything if I can't protect my wife and
children," he said.
Siddheshwar and his immediate family
fled their home (Kekania village of Gopalganj district, post: Sultanshahi)
in late November after they saw what happened to his 18- year-old niece,
Urmila. "They (some neighbours) just entered our courtyard, picked up Urmila
and beat us up," he said.
"Her parents have stayed put, hoping
to get her back. But I did not see any sense in that," he said. He has
three daughters, Aparna, 16, Archana, 14, and Jaba, 10, and a 12- year-old
son, Subhankar.
Bijaya Baidya's husband, Amal Krishna
(of Baruibhita village, Gopalganj), was killed more than a year ago after
he protested against the forcible harvesting of his crop.
"He was killed in the open market,"
Bijaya said. "This time, too, we were told not to reap what we sowed. There
was no point in staying back." She said she could not let her four sons,
between 11 and 20 years old, meet their father's fate.
More fortunate is the family of
Purnima Biswas, who lived near Gopalganj (town). She had a brother living
here; he had come just a year ago. "I followed my brother here," she said.
Purnima could afford to lose the 4 bighas she had.
What is happening to the land they
owned in Bangladesh became clearer from Shanti Biswas's (of Keshabpur village
in Noral sub-division) story.
Her neighbour, Sattar Mian, arranged
for the dalal, she said, and he would "take care" of their land while they
were away. "But he also told us not to come back," Shanti said.
