A caged life even after independence for residents of Indian hamlet on Bangladesh border
As yet another election rolls by, the residents of Chor Meghna have little hope that their demand to be a part of mainland India will ever be met.
“Elections are held time and again, but despite being Indians, we continue to stay on the other side of the barbed wire fence,” says 80-year-old Ajit Prabhu, resident of Chor Meghna, a hamlet in West Bengal’s Nadia district, on the India-Bangladesh border.
About 750 people living in the hamlet are compelled to carry their Aadhaar or voter identification cards all the time. “Nothing is more important than our identity card; if not for it, we won’t be able to even enter our village,” Prabhu says.
There are a few grocery stores and a primary school in Chor Meghna, but for everything else, including higher education, healthcare and even buying essentials, the residents have to cross the fence at the border gates.
Personnel from the Border Security Force man the gates, and maintain a register where they note down the names and the time of entry or exit when people cross the fence. Even that is only between 6 am and 6 pm. Three hours later, the gates open again, and if the residents miss that slot, they cannot enter the village until 6 am the next morning.
“We have never asked for much,” says 51-year-old Mahesh Mandal. “We want the leaders to solve the land problem and connect...
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