Tens of thousands of stateless people who were stranded for decades along the poorly defined border between India and Bangladesh can finally choose their citizenship, as the two countries swapped more than 150 pockets of land at the stroke of midnight Friday to settle the demarcation line dividing them.
Television images showed people bursting firecrackers and raising an Indian flag in the Masaldanga enclave, which became part of India. On the other side of the new border, thousands of people who have been living in the enclaves in Bangladesh cheered, danced and chanted “Bangladesh, Bangladesh.”
They lit 68 candles and released 68 balloons, then marched through the village of Dashiarchhara, highlighting that it took 68 years to settle the border dispute. The village in Kurigram district is 240 kilometers north of Dhaka, Bangladesh’s capital.
India’s External Affairs Ministry described July 31 as a historic day for both India and Bangladesh as “it marks the resolution of a complex issue that has lingered since independence” from British colonialists in 1947.
“We are very happy, our children will no more need to hide their identity to go to schools,” said Bashir Mia, 46. Many people posed as Bangladeshis to get their children admitted to schools in Bangladesh.
“We are free now, we are Bangladeshis,” he said.
Nearly 37,000 people lived in 111 Indian enclaves inside Bangladesh, while 14,000 lived in 51 Bangladeshi enclaves in India. They now get citizenship of their choice as a result of the agreement between the two countries. Ashok Sharma, New Delhi, AP
21 feared dead in mudslide in india’s remote northeast
Twenty-one people were feared dead Saturday in a mudslide triggered by torrential monsoon rains in India’s remote mountainous northeast region, police said. The mudslide occurred in Joumol, a village in Manipur state close to India’s border with Myanmar, said police officer Herojit Singh. Police reinforcements were finding it difficult to reach the area which has been cut off by road because of heavy rains over the past three days, Singh said. He said that the rescuers would use helicopters to land in the area yesterday after daybreak. T.S. Warngam, a vice president of the United Naga Council, a civil society organization, said that 20 villagers were feared to have been swept away by the landslide and that one villager was rescued by other residents of the area.
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