Border simmers, Fernandes says things have gone out of control

Stopping over in Kolkata on his way home from a tour of South East Asia, Deputy Prime Minister L K Advani, who discussed the illegal migrants issue with West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, said the large number of Bangladeshis living in India illegally had no right to do so.

‘‘They can’t live here permanently. Illegal immigrants cannot be accepted.’’ On the stand-off over the 213 stranded Bangladeshi snake-charmers, Advani made it clear they had to go back.

But the worry was also showing. Speaking to reporters on the sidelines of the Aero-India 2003 show in Bangalore, Defence Minister George Fernandes said, ‘‘There are times when things go out of control. In this particular case, things have unfortunately gone beyond control.’’

The diplomatic channel is, therefore, being kept busy. After meeting the Chief Minister, Advani spoke to External Affairs Minister Yashwant Sinha in New Delhi who is expected to take up the matter with his Bangladesh counterpart M Morshed Khan. Dhaka’s high commissioner to Delhi Tufail Karim Haider will also be meeting Sinha. In New Delhi, the BSF sat with the Home Ministry and External Affairs Ministry to take stock.

With Dhaka turning down the offer of joint verification of the stranded people by claiming that Indian Muslims were being pushed into Bangladesh, the Home Ministry issued a statement, saying patrolling had been intensified in the surrounding areas to ‘‘check any kind of infiltration/push-in activities by the BDR.’’

But at Satgachi in Cooch Behar, the current stand-off and troop reinforcement had no bearing on cross-border smuggling. ‘‘Border politics may be hot but border economics is cool and on course,’’ confessed a senior official. Cattle from the Indian side was making its way across the border and a BSF patrol today confiscated a huge consignment of Chinese silk yarn, headed for Kolkata.

The BDR, in the meantime, refused to receive a BSF letter protesting provocative moves by BDR personnel and villagers across the border. The BSF wanted to lodge an official protest over the digging of trenches by the BDR. K C Sharma, BSF’s acting IG for North Bengal, said, ‘‘our counterparts in Bangladesh are doing all they can to provoke us but we are waiting for word from Delhi. They are even snapping normal channels of communication in a planned manner.’’