LAND SWAP : National flag hoisted in 111 enclaves

Local administrations in Lalmonirhat, Kurigram, Panchagarh and Nilphamari on Saturday morning hoisted the national flag and played the national anthem in 111 enclaves, which became the integral part of Bangladesh from midnight past Friday, to mark the land swap with India.
Officials, local representatives, enclave leaders and people from all walks of life also brought out colourful processions on the occasion after hoisting the national flag at about 6:00am simultaneously.
Enclave dwellers celebrated ‘freedom from confined life’ of 68 years in a festive mood by lighting 68 candles in each enclave at midnight past Friday, the very moment when 162 such territories in Bangladesh and India ceased to exist as enclaves.
Bangladesh handed over its 51 enclaves located in Cooch Bihar to India and took over 111 Indian enclaves inside Bangladesh from Saturday under the land boundary agreement signed between the two countries in 1974 for the exchange of the 162 enclaves, transfer of adversely possessed areas and demarcation of 6.5 kilometres of unmarked border lands.
New Age correspondent in Lalmonirhat reported that lawmaker from reserved seat in Lalmonirhat and Kurigram Safura Begum Rumi hoisted the national flag at Bhitarkuti enclave under Lalmonirhat sadar upazila at 6.01am.
‘We are feeling proud becoming Bangladesh nationals…The enclave land now becomes part of Bangladesh and now we will get land documents,’ said Fatel Ali, 68, a resident of Bhitarkuti.
New Age correspondent in Kurigram reported that Phulbari upazila nirbahi officer Nasir Uddin Mahmud hoisted the national flag at Dasiar Chhara in the morning marking the merger of the largest Indian enclave with Bangladesh.
Former lawmaker of Kurigram-2 constituency Jafar Ali also inaugurated the new land of Bangladesh by cutting cake at 11:30am.
The enclave that remained outside any government development programme for decades took a colourful look as locals decorated the muddy roads with pied papers and archways to celebrate their ‘freedom from confined life of 68 years.’
Bangladesh-India Enclave Exchange Coordination Committee Bangladesh unit president Mohammad Moinul Haque said that the government should immediately take development programmes in the enclaves as they were deprived of all facilities including health, education and electricity.
The government on Thursday issued a gazette notification declaring that all the 111 Indian enclaves in Bangladesh measuring 17160.63 acres of land and 2267.682 acres of Indian land adversely possessed by Bangladesh will be the integral part of Bangladesh from August 1.
The gazette notification also said that 51 Bangladesh enclaves in India with 7710.02 acres of land and 2777.038 acres of Bangladesh land adversely possessed by India would be excluded from the Bangladesh territory.
The 1947 partition of the Indian subcontinent had left the enclave people virtually stateless as the hastily drawn maps of India and the then Pakistan by the Radcliffe Commission created pockets adversely possessed land along the border of the two countries and caused a lot of confusion.
A total of 39,621 people out of over 40,600 living in the 111 enclaves have sought to become Bangladesh citizens while 979 of them have opted to retain Indian citizenship, according to a joint survey conducted in July 6-16.
None from a population of around 15,000 living in the Bangladesh enclaves now merged with India had opted to move to their mainland, the survey found.

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