Editor,
Every conscientious Indian citizen should hang his /her head in shame over the deeply outraging incident that occurred in the early morning of March 14 last in one premier Catholic missionary school at Ranaghat , near Kolkata where a 74 year old nun was brutally gang- raped by no less than 7 (seven) dacoits who thereafter fled the scene after robbing the said school of some of its valuables. The septuagenarian victim nun was so badly injured that she had to undergo surgery. This inhuman depredation has triggered shock waves across the country. Notwithstanding the fact that the goons’ images were clearly caught in the CCTV, it was only after twelve days that the cops could make a
breakthrough in making the first arrest and whence it transpired that the main accused hailed from Bangladesh and some of them had fled to other parts of the country or crossed over to Bangladesh and are cozily home and dry. If that is so, I shudder to think how our BSF jawans are guarding our long Indo-Bangla borders? And from this unsavoury incident, we can conclusively term that hard core anti-social elements from Bangladesh can unhesitatingly infiltrate into India to commit myriad crimes without any qualms whatsoever and return carefree to their country of domicile. And this is what is precisely and
constantly plaguing the border people of Hynniewtrep. Dr D Lyngdoh, M.L.A. from Shella constituency has also echoed this problematic fact in the last session of the Meghalaya Legislative Assembly.
The Centre has erected formidable anti-infiltration infrastructures running across the Indo-Pak borders on the Kashmir-Punjab sectors where terrorists have found infiltration into India. If the western border is given so much importance then I cannot see why the same modus operandi is not being replicated in the Indo-Bangla borders right from the states of Tripura, Assam , Meghalaya and
West Bengal which share a longish stretch of land and riverine borderline with Bangladesh. In sum, it is discernible that those at the helm of affairs have given a couldn’t care less attitude to our North eastern states vis-à-vis their counterparts at the Western sectors thereby giving wide berth to Bangdeshi infiltrators to enter and commit wide-spread border crimes with impunity. The UNO could not ,therefore, have been more right in declaring that the on-going exodus from Bangladesh into India is arguably one of the most persistent and challenging problem in this northern hemisphere. This UNO’s declaration was also aired in the media in September 13, 2013. I hope that the present BJP led Government under Prime Minister Narendra Modi will guarantee that a sustainable and durable
anti-infiltration structure is speedily put in place in the North East as he himself had, in his last Lok Sabha election in Assam, stated that if voted to power his NDA Government would accord top priority in dealing with the inexorable influx issue from Bangladesh. I hope that the Prime Minister’s words would match with his actions.
Yours etc
Jerome Diengdoh.
Shillong- 2