Cooch Behar: The usually bustling India-Bangladesh border in Changrabandha, Cooch Behar, West Bengal looks starkly different now. Amidst escalating unrest in Bangladesh, Indian students studying there have begun returning home.
Around 500 students, primarily enrolled in MBBS programmes, have arrived in West Bengal since last Friday (July 19). According to checkpoint sources, over two hundred are foreign nationals hailing mostly from Nepal, Bhutan, and Maldives.
“The situation is dire and unsafe. We managed to hire vehicles somehow and reached the border. Everyone is mentally exhausted,” said a student, who hails from Bihar and studies at Prime Medical College in the northern district of Rangpur in Bangladesh.
Similarly, Rahul Rai from Nepal and Bipin Mehta from Bhutan returned through this route. They shared their ordeal, “We went to study MBBS at Rangpur Medical College. We were not involved in the violent protests and shootings there. We were confined to our hostel, which was also not safe. Attacks were imminent, so we rented vehicles and headed to the nearest border. All government offices are closed there now. It is a relief that we managed to return.”
India-Bangladesh border in Changrabandha, Cooch Behar, West Bengal. Photo: Arranged by the author
Since Saturday, the Border Security Force (BSF) personnel have installed a special three-tier security ring at this border. Hundreds of goods trucks that regularly travel between the two countries are now stranded.
“I don’t know how long the border will remain closed. If it stays like this for long, the onions will spoil under the scorching sun,” said Suraj Prasad, a driver who transports onions from Nasik to Bangladesh.
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Students have also crossed into India via the Akhaura border near Agartala in Tripura and the Dawki border in Meghalaya.
In Changrabandha, some of the students said that they reached the border after a six-hour journey by taxi. Bangladeshi security forces escorted them across the border.
Translated from the Bengali original by Aparna Bhattacharya.
