With pictures from the film Between the Lines’

New Delhi, January 12: It is over in 11 minutes. And the pace is made faster by the traditional drum beats of the dhak of Bengal. It is ju...

New Delhi, January 12: It is over in 11 minutes. And the pace is made faster by the traditional drum beats of the dhak of Bengal. It is just apt for the short documentary by film maker Parvez Imam which is the story of people caught between two border lines. The lines of India and Bangladesh. The people are immigrants from Bangladesh settled in the slums of Delhi. In the Jamuna Pushta, in Mandawli, in any which slum one may think of.

Imam captures the lives of these people who were forced to flee Delhi following a drive in the Capital last year to drive out Bangladeshi immigrants. The year witnessed large scale arrests of people apparently identified as illegal Bangladeshi immigrants living in Delhi. Many persons have been in detention for months. Many others have apparently been deported’ back to Bangladesh. But the Bangladesh authorities claim that they are not aware of any such deportations. The question then is: Where are these people going? says Imam explaining his theme.

The people caught in this apparently surreptitious drive hence belonged neither here nor there.

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These men and women narrate how they were chased to the borders of Bangladesh and left there. But they are attacked by Bangladeshi border police. And they run back only to have their women raped by Indian villagers.

The men say it all, their eyes hardened with their misery. Imam captures it on film and calls it a document on the cruel violation of human rights in the name of borderlines and citizenships.

He shows these men and women with their baffled expressions as they display their voters cards, ration cards and other proofs of their residence in India.

“For these people disowned by either sides, human rights do not exist. Harassment and victimization are a routine,” says Imam. The film says it more vocally.

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There is a particularly poignant tale of a woman whose husband has been deported’ by the police to Bangladesh but who remains in Delhi’s slums not knowing how to find her husband in another country.

Commenting on the documentary, he says that he does not disagree with those who say that immigrants should not be allowed to stay in the country permanently. But shouldn’t we also remember that these immigrants are human beings also? And that there is a humane, civilised way to handle the issue,” he asks.

Imam a trained medical doctor who quit the profession to make films has made about 30 documentaries on a wide range of issues ranging from medical topics, drug abuse, disability to the power reforms in India under the banner of f20 communications. Last year he completed The Invisible Minority a film on the status of the disabled people in the country. It was screened on the national network of Doordarshan.