Layman shows paths to Pak

To Karachi then, goes Khan, assuming the name of the Pakistani who has crossed to India and using his work permit. The Pakistani, likewise, assumes Khan8217;s name and uses his permit. Both get three or four days to be in the other8217;s country before they are back home after another out-at-sea exchange.

Across the Indo-Pakistan border in the Kutch district, the illegal traffic is not in contraband alone. Nor is it only of terrorists and intelligence agents. Most people living along both sides of the border 8212; ordinary villagers, who tend cattle, grow millet, or sell milk for a living 8212; have relatives across the border. While visiting them, the villagers do without the paperwork, taking either the land or the sea route.

8220;After all we are brothers separated by the Partition. We do not see ourselves as Indians and Pakistanis,8221; says Abdul Gafur of Navinar village. Back in the eighties, he recounts, two girls from his village were given in marriage to boys from a Pakistani village. Gafur8217;s daughter was one of the brides.

8220;Both the baarats were small 8212; just about 10 people in each 8212; but they did come across the border, walking just like that, and went back after the marriage,8221; he says.

The number of cross-border marriages has gone down in the nineties; the illegal crossings haven8217;t.

The district8217;s difficult terrain makes the cross-border traffic hard to check. The Rann of Kutch is stretches of desert and sun-baked flatland into which the sea sends in several fingers. During monsoon most of the Rann is flooded with seawater and water from the Indus. The Border Security Force BSF has few men to patrol these long stretches. The Coast Guard patrols only the bigger creeks.

There are favoured routes for crossing over. In the Khadva region, camel owners on either side will send a person across on camelback for a fee. The animals home in on the particular village they are trained to go to. Much contraband is traded this way. In the Haji Pir area, people cross over walking. Both areas have thickets, which provide cover from security-agency patrols.

Another favoured spot is the Harami Nala, so called because the disputed creek is claimed by both India and Pakistan. Customs departments of both countries do not patrol this creek, so fishing boats exchange people crossing over to either side.

While most Indians go across to visit relatives, the Pakistanis come here in search of work. It is indigent Bangladeshis settled illegally in Pakistan who usually cross to India seeking work either as boat-hands or as boat and net repairers.

Says Mohammed Humayun Kabir, a Bangladeshi who was caught crossing over from Pakistan near the Haji Pir checkpoint, 8220;It is difficult for us to earn even Rs 50 a day in Pakistan.8221;

In India, illegal aliens like him can earn some Rs 20,000 in the six-month fishing season that begins in October. For them, the earnings are worth running the risk of getting caught. For their Indian employers, hiring illegal aliens works out cheaper. They can be press-ganged into working longer hours for lesser pay. The fear of exposure to the authorities keeps them quiet.

Then there are pilgrims. The Urs celebration at the Haji Pir shrine in Kutch held in March attracts several pilgrims from Pakistani villages. They find it easier to reach the shrine without papers. The police and the security agencies step up patrols during this time but they are not able to do muchSimilarly, there are pilgrims to the Khwaja Moin-ud-deen Chisti shrine in Ajmer, Rajasthan. Their destination is farther, but faith 8212; and halts at villages they have relatives in 8212; see them through.

Don8217;t these illegal aliens get caught? Kutch8217;s district superintendent of police, Keshav Kumar, trots out the figures. Last year his men caught 63 of them; this year till March 8 they have caught 15. Several go uncaught.

Police officers blame the BSF for not having enough patrols. The charge holds true 8212; there were only three BSF jawans covering a 6 km stretch of sanded desert in Lakhpat. 8220;That won8217;t do, but we don8217;t have enough men,8221; admits a BSF officer.

Till that happens, or a fence is put up, the illegal but by and large humane traffic will continue. After all the authorities announce only the contraband seizures 8212; arms, RDX, narcotics, detonators. In fact most of the stuff sent with fishermen and others going across is harmless: videotapes of Hindi and Urdu films, gifts and letters for relatives.

Sending them by post takes 15-20 days; the illegal channel takes them to loved ones across the border in a day or two.