The enclaves on both sides of the India-Bangladesh border erupted in celebration soon after the two sides exchanged the instruments of ratification of the Land Boundary Agreement on Saturday.
Processions were taken out and sweets distributed, and people raised Indian and Bangladeshi flags, depending on which side of the border they live. “It is a great day for us, and I hope that within months we will be adopted by our country, India in my case,” Chumki Khatun, 20, of the Poaturkuthi enclave said.
Living on fake identities
Ms. Khatun plans to wake up early on Monday morning, take a bus to the Dinhata sub-divisional town and from there, to Dinhata College in Cooch Behar district, where she studies.
Ms. Khatun will then meet the college authorities and provide her parents “a legal identity” — five decades after their birth.
“Two years ago, when I joined the college, I had to fudge the names and the identity of my parents. On Monday, I will ask the authorities to change the name of my ‘fake’ parents and use the actual names and address,” she told The Hindu on the phone from the enclave on the Indian side.
Kobiruddin, 62, was the first to raise the Indian flag in the Poaturkuthi enclave, soon after the exchange of the instruments of ratification of the Land Boundary Agreement between India and Bangladesh in Dhaka on Saturday.
