Bangla teen nabbed while sneaking into India to buy chocolate

Agartala: A Bangladeshi teen has been arrested and put behind bars for illegally crossing into India to buy chocolate, BSF said on Friday.

Eman Hossain, a resident of a Bangladeshi village close to Shalda River, which marks the international border between the two countries, regularly swam across the water body to buy his favourite Indian chocolate in Tripura’s Sipahijala district.

He used to sneak through a hole in the barbed wire fencing to buy chocolate from a shop in Kalamchoura village in India, and return home the same way.

However, his adventurism came to an end on April 13 when Border Security Force (BSF) nabbed Hossain while he was undertaking one such journey.

The boy was handed over to local police, which produced him before the court. He was remanded to 15 days’ judicial custody, Sonamura SDPO Banoj Biplab Das said.

”During interrogation, the boy, a resident of Bangladesh’s Comilla district, confessed to sneaking into India for buying chocolate. Only 100 Bangladeshi Taka was found with him, but he did not possess anything illegal. He was arrested for entering India without valid documents,” Das said.

”Further investigation is underway. He will be again produced before the court to decide his fate,” he said.

No one from his family has contacted Indian authorities so far. ”The international border in Sonamura sub-division is porous despite the erection of barbed wire fencing. There are many villages in Kalamchoura gram panchayat where the border slices through bedrooms and drawing rooms of many houses. Moreover, many stretches are unfenced due to difficult terrain,” BSF sources said.

”Bangladeshis often sneak into India to buy groceries or even attend social functions. BSF generally ignores them on humanitarian grounds and takes action against smugglers and traffickers. But as far as I know, the boy had come only to buy chocolate,” Elius Hossain, a Kalamchoura resident said.