India’s Border Security Force (BSF) has pushed nine Indian nationals, including women, into Bangladesh through the Kurigram border. The Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB) said the individuals were sent back through the same route they had crossed.

According to BGB and local border residents, the BSF pushed the nine Indian nationals — three of them women — into Bangladesh around midnight on Tuesday through the Dhaluabari border in Kedaar Union of Nageshwari upazila. Later, at dawn, they moved further into Bangladesh and were detained by BGB personnel in the areas of Goler Haat and Kochakata Bazar while travelling along local roads in Saheberkhansh of the same union.

Among those detained, Shahar Ali, a resident of the Malegarh area under Jubigoba police station in Bongaigaon district of India’s Assam state, said the BSF brought them from a detention camp and forced them across the barbed-wire fence under the cover of darkness. The group included a total of nine people, including women.

Lieutenant Colonel Mohammad Mahbub-ul-Haq, commanding officer of BGB’s Kurigram-22 Battalion, said the individuals who were pushed in had remained near the border area. “They have been sent back through the same route by which they entered,” he said, adding that the matter would be discussed with the BSF.