By Sukanya Roy, TwoCircles.net
Parganas: On 27 July, Saddam Hossain Fakir crossed the barbed wire fencing a few kilometres from his house, as usual, to work on paddy fields lining the Indo-Bangladesh border. He deposited his ID with the Border Security Force, and work began at 6 am. At 9 am, two officers came up to him and said that their Company Commander had summoned him. When Saddam reached the Gobra BSF camp at Gate no. 18, the Commander started beating Saddam with a stick, while abusing him continuously in Hindi. No explanation was given, but the commander said, “We will send you to Bangladesh after NRC… just wait.”
Even after Fakir fell on the IBBR road, the Commander continued kicking and punching him. After some time, his family and friends rescued him. Fakir was taken to Sarapul Hospital to treat his injuries.
The next day, he went to Gobra camp with one of his friends, to ask for his documents back and demand a reason for the violence he suffered. In a video shared publicly by MASUM, a human rights organisation based in West Bengal, Fakir recounts, “The Commander told me, go and complain to any number of police and activists. I do not care. Even if you file a case against me in the (National) Human (Rights) Commission, it will not affect me.”
Saddam was consequently denied his documents. In the same video, he says, “My only source of income is agriculture. Without this, I cannot feed my family and pay for my child’s future education. I cannot sustain like this much longer.”
While their two-year-old daughter was crying in the background, his wife Ajmera Bibi, told TwoCircles.net on the phone, that Fakir was recently encouraged by local activists to resume agricultural work. However, working without documents will perhaps render him more vulnerable to exploitation at the hands of BSF.
She added, “Two days ago when he was coming home from the fields, a BSF officer asked him if he had filed a case against them. Saddam replied yes. Then, another officer began threatening him from the side, saying they will tie him and beat him black and blue. “Why are you standing on the road? Come inside!” he kept taunting. Saddam rushed home.”
The torture and harassment of Saddam Fakir is one of the numerous cases of human rights violations along the Indo-Bangladesh border. Fact-finding missions undertaken by MASUM reveal that there are at least 1000 cases of illegal detentions, custodial killings, physical and sexual abuse, and verbal harassment perpetrated by the BSF against vulnerable Indian and Bangladeshi civilians each year.
To justify their aggressive attitude towards residents, the BSF has perennially put forward two explanations. The first reason: they attack only in self-defence when surrounded by violent ‘cattle smugglers’. This is a clear expression of an encoded communal bias against the Muslim population inhabiting border villages of both countries.
In the previous article of this series, a Muslim youth of Coochbehar was shot to death by another BSF Commander, who accused him of being a cattle smuggler, when he was merely sitting outside his house and playing mobile games. Kirity Roy says, “Caste Hindus make up hardly one percent of the border population. Here, there are three main communities: Muslims, Dalits and Adivasis. They make up a collectively poor and socially marginalized populace. This encourages the BSF to treat them brutally.”
He adds, “BSF violence has increased exponentially during the lockdown, we are registering complaints on nearly a daily basis.”
The second reason BSF gives is: people caught crossing the border fence deserve to be shot. However, these atrocities are results of the BSF’s own undue policing. Human rights lawyer Biswajit Mukherjee told TwoCircles.net, “The BSF has erected barbed wire fences arbitrarily. The fencing is done 3-4 kms away from the actual border in some places, whereas in others, 8-10 kms away. So, the land on the other side is also Indian land. Taking their ID proofs to cross over is completely illegal, as the BSF has erected fences inside Indian territory, and not at the border.”
Another reason why farmers work across the fencing is the intimidation tactics used by the BSF. Fakir continues in the video, “The BSF had burned down my lands where I used to farm jute. Since then, I was compelled to work on the other side.” Fakir does not own this land, roughly 9 bighas in size, and engages in collective cropping. “We try not to talk to the Bangladeshi farmers whose land is next to ours, out of fear. Still, they accuse us routinely of hatching smuggling plans, and abuse us.”
Perhaps, the threat of NRC given by the commander is as alarming as the physical torture. Biswajit asks, “Why does the BSF, a body which is supposedly concerned with ensuring the safety of Indian citizens, think it has the power to drive out other citizens from the country? This is an attack on a certain section of people.”
Saddam Fakir wrote an email to the Superintendent of Police, Basirhat, seeking justice and a fair investigation. Biswajit points out, “No FIR was filed by the police. Under Sec. 154 of the CrPC, it is mandatory to file an FIR and investigate the cognizable offence(s) reported. They flouted the law by filing a GD entry, because these entries do not warrant further investigation.”
The brazen attitude of the BSF seems to be entrenching itself further with each atrocity committed. Even though global human rights organisations have investigated violations by military personnel along the Indo-Bangladesh border, the NHRC has not dealt with these cases adequately. In shockingly few cases, families are given monetary compensation.
Worse still, in not one out of thousand cases is a proper investigation carried out: an investigation open to the possibility of seeing the accused official dismissed and legally prosecuted. A growing hyper-nationalist narrative pardons and justifies their criminal acts as collateral damage in the arduous process of ensuring ‘national security’.
Mohar Mandal, District HR Monitor for North 24 Parganas, questions the veracity of this narrative. “I live in the border area myself, I can vouch for this: the BSF acts out of an extremely paranoid attitude, their working theory is that each local person is dishonest. They have proven unable to get over a mentality of lingering doubt and suspicion towards them. The uneasy collaboration between the BSF, police and governments have alienated the locals even further in their quest for justice.”
He laments, “The real tragedy is that the people living and working on the other side of the fencing are Indians who are not quite Indian.”
Mandal elaborates, “The BSF harasses and delays the men from working or going home by unnecessarily checking their IDs. People have to come before 6 pm for the fear of patrols, detentions, shootings, physical and sexual abuse. When the victims approach local hospitals, they are asked whether the BSF caused their injuries. If so, injuries are often not recorded and medicines are prescribed informally.”
“People have grown tired of being constantly hounded and accused of false crimes and provocations. A few residents of this border area, who have greater financial stability, sold off their lands and houses at throw-away prices just to get away from all this. The poorer inhabitants tried to, but no one bought their lands”, he adds.
The helplessness of these communities is further worsened by the hypocrisy of governments at all levels. Mondal says, “No MP or MLA has ever raised the issue of helping people who live on the other side of the fence migrate into the mainland. Despite their history of oppression, no government has made efforts to rehabilitate and accommodate these villagers. They are stuck in an extremely precarious reality. This is what I want to highlight.”