The modus operandi was simple. And those who drew them to the border were ruthless. Bangladeshi labourers wanting to go out to Pakistan and the Middle East were contacted by travel touts in Dhaka and other large cities who demanded part of the payment in advance. The figures cited to me at the time were between 15,000 rupees and 25,000 rupees per person. Through a network of agents in Bangladesh and India, the men, often with their families, would be transported to near the border.

‘The last agent would take them to the desert, away from the nearest Border Security Force post and then point westwards and say, “Pakistan is just there”,’ an intelligence official said.13

‘Over there’ invariably meant getting lost in the sand dunes, with no identifiable landmarks or guides. Scores, some say hundreds, have perished in this manner under a merciless sun and a hostile environment. At times, entire groups of men, women and children (in one case over forty bodies were found) have died of dehydration, sunstroke and starvation.

Far from their lush-green land, watered by fifty-two rivers and innumerable streams, washed and flooded by monsoon rains, home to rich traditions of music, song and dance, their bodies collapsed and dried up in an alien environment, under a pitiless sun.

In some cases, they were shot by guards from either side—suspected of being Pakistanis or Indians. The Indians say that there have been incidents where Pakistani Rangers have captured groups, shot or imprisoned the men, raped the women and then thrown them back into the desert to die. Of course, stories about the same treatment being meted out on this side also do the rounds.

Tremendous desperation in addition to an equal determination is what drives a person to go to such lengths to leave his own country, breaking the bonds of familiarity, family and social comfort, and to put himself and his close relatives at such terrible risk. It is a sign of the power of passage, of the allure of a better life, of the destitution that people flee.

There are an estimated one million Bangladeshis in the city of Karachi alone, according to Pakistani scholars and journalists. They comprise the city’s labour, including construction workers and menials such as cleaners and domestic help.

‘The aim is to go to the Middle East but they are rarely able to go beyond Karachi because once they settle down, they find it difficult to move again,’ said the intelligence official in India.14