How BJP offensive on Bangladesh is roiling politics on the Bengal border
A majority of residents in West Bengal’s North 24 Parganas district have relatives on the other side, and a memory of communal persecution in East Pakistan.
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Every few weeks, Prosenjit Das visits Bangladesh, either to meet his relatives or on business.
For the 37-year-old resident of Shimultala, a village in Bangaon in West Bengal, close to the India-Bangladesh border, it simply means taking an auto to the immigration checkpost and crossing over on foot. Das continued to travel this way even after August 5 – when the Sheikh Hasina government fell in Dhaka.
“I was in Dhaka for 10 days till November 20,” Das told Scroll. “I did not face any problems.”
But the recent reports of attacks on minorities in Bangladesh, especially Hindus, have held him back.
“Someone like me, who goes to Bangladesh once a week, is now afraid to visit,” said Das. “What if something happens to me?”
Das, like most other residents of this region in West Bengal’s North 24 Parganas district, has relatives across the border.
In 1971, millions of Bengali Hindus from Khulna and Jessore districts had crossed the border, fleeing the assault of the Pakistan army. They took the historic Jessore Road, which led out of Bangladesh to Bangaon and Kolkata. Das’s family was among them.
The recent violence in the neighbouring country has Das worried, but news from his relatives in the adjoining Jessore and Khulna districts has not been overtly alarming. “My...
