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Corruption at Benapole

5 August 2005, 18:00 PM
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
By Ahmed Niaz Shekhertek, Mohammadpur, Dhaka
5 August 2005, 18:00 PM
To a young mind as mine who did not yet leave college campus, the world of rampant corruption and bribery within the ambit of government officials was so long out of practical experience. Though I very often come across stories and learn from newspapers about corruption having eaten up Bangladesh. An urgent visit to Kolkata recently through the Benapole border and return by the same route struck me with that experience. To speak the truth, the immigration police officer, custom officials and BDR personnel make no secret of the practice with the hundreds crossing the border daily. Even the officials at bank operating to collect immigration/embarkation fees make it incumbent to pay them in excess of the prescribed amount on the plea they are not supposed to start their work so early in the morning. All night coach passengers reach border just at the day break.

No hide and seek or shame in asking for money. The immigration police official who is to verify the passport/visa and see if the holder is any one of the unwanted list or with any doubtful credentials, will not put his signature and stamp until paid some extra. If bad luck descends on you, you have to get out of his clutch by coming to terms with him paying a respectable amount. Anybody daring to argue will be driven into a corner, be hard put to undesired grilling that would cause him delay and would miss the bus on the Indian side of the frontier. But if you are one of the passengers of the luxury coach with ticket up to Calcutta (fare is Tk 700) you need not go to the bank or face the immigration police officer. The coach supervisor deposits your fees to the bank and gets your passport signed and stamped, thanks to the clandestine arrangement to pay them certain agreed amount per passport. Hence the high charge of coach fare.

Then for your custom clearance you will stand on the queue before the custom house with your passport and a hundred taka note in hand. Oh God! No checking, nor any query. The custom subordinate staff will promptly take you to pass through giving the officers the nod that the payment has been made. There are hardly a few who refuse to pay and who try to do so with gruelling hassle only to give in to their demands.

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Few hundreds of people from Bangladesh go to India daily for medical treatment and other purposes and they return in same number. While returning you may have your bag(s) filled with what you have liked and bought from a foreign land with whatever money you could save. But you will confront BDR personnel who are to pass you on to the custom after a glance at you and of your passport, maybe to be sure that you are the person who had gone this way and has come back, also just to receive you from the Indian BSF who let you pass off their check-post. The BDR personnel keep no record. But they have their eyes on your luggage, and scare you out for what you have brought though you have brought nothing prohibited under the custom law. This is however the sole discretion of the custom officials.