We went to another side of the hurly-burly. Listen to Bablu Roy, a Koch-Rajbongshi, who, at thirty-one, was preparing for his law exams. ‘Guwahati is the main attraction for daily wages and jobs. If you ask them where they are from, they will tell you that they are from Agomoni. If you press further, they will say they are from Satrasal in Agomoni block. This is because while passing through, they get to know a bit about the place and the people here. Sometimes, they can even tell you the names of people living in Satrasal. That is why most of them say they are from this area and people think that a lot of immigration is taking place via Satrasal.’

Roy sounded a bit more convincing then Sen Senior. He seemed to know what he was talking about. And he was certain that much of the movement took place on the other side of the river, from Mancachar. Those who migrate to Mancachar, Roy said, did not move out of the area because the population there was homogenous. ‘It is constituted mostly of erstwhile migrants from East Bengal which is not the case in Satrasal-Agomoni area. In Mancachar it is near impossible to tell an illegal immigrant from an earlier migrant. . . there they all look alike, speak the same language, wear the same clothes. But in Satrasal-Agomoni, you will find Bengalis, Assamese, both Hindus and Muslims, Koch-Rajbongshis . . . It is not possible to hide here.’

The people of Satrasal had, wonder of wonders, actually caught one live Bangladeshi in 1986 (there is no record of anyone else being intercepted and caught, which makes one wonder about the super-efficiency of our smartly-attired BSF. ‘He had entered through Jhaukutty and moved to Guwahati, there he pulled rickshaws for some time; he even had a rickshaw license issued to him by the municipal authorities in Guwahati. We handed him over to the local police.’

That was the end of Roy’s story about the lonely Bangladeshi rickshaw-puller from Guwahati.

On to Ronendra Chandra Das, a gram sevak or village-level, local government worker in Agonomi since 1980. ‘There was some immigration into our area before 1973-74 but not any longer. Some people still enter through West Bengal and spread out over Assam, even to the chars. Do you know that Bangladeshis come to Mancachar for their weekly shopping? They use the river channels to enter India. In Bengal, the restrictions are not as strict. Truckloads of illegal goods are moving out daily from Dinhata, Sahebgunj in Cooch Behar. What are the police or the BSF doing about that? They get their share from the traders and the illegal immigrants.’ And the latter enter ‘through the Muslim villages.’

Again the voice of wisdom speaks of information from a distant land, a faraway district but with much vehemence. The reason for this clarity is simple: Das and Roy have travelled to these areas and seen the situation for themselves.