Author: Subrata Nagchoudhury
Publication: The Indian Express
Date: June 7, 2003
URL: http://www.indianexpress.com/archive_full_story.php?content_id=25292
Far removed from zero line and international
glare, nearly 500 Bangladeshi migrants continue to languish in the 20-odd
jails of WB. To all, they are forgotten - Bangladesh has shown no interest
in getting them back, and India seems to be in no hurry to deport them
who are often pawns in the state's politics.
Unlike the western border, where
release of every Pakistani prisoner from an Indian jail and vice versa
is greeted with reams of newsprint, the Bangladeshi detainees don't figure
on the diplomatic scale.
Waiting without trial for months,
most of these detainees are either fishermen accused of straying into Indian
waters or migrants trying to cross the borders. In many cases, say jail
officials, prisoners continue to linger on despite their jail terms being
over because of official formalities.
The WB Jail Department has woken
up to the crisis, but it is not so much for diplomacy, as for pure economics.
''They have been eating into our pockets,'' says IG (Prisons) J. Chakravarty.
Moves have been initiated to ensure speedy deportation of migrants, he
adds.
A senior official says the department
spends over Rs 67 lakh per year on Bangladeshi prisoners, and since many
have been imprisoned for over two years, the expenses run up to Rs 1.35
crore plus. Chakravarty said the department was interacting with the Bangladesh
High Commission to work out a way for speedy disposal of the cases. The
Bangladesh government's approval and verification of an arrested migrant's
bona fides is required before he/she can be deported.
A senior Bangladesh High Commission
official says the delay is not from their side alone. ''There is a wide
gap between what the higher-ups plan and the ground reality.'' For the
past two years, the Bangladesh Deputy High Commission has been trying to
get a list of those detained in Bengal jails and charges against them,
but without success, he says.
