Tension gripped Dashamighat and its adjacent villages in Sabroom subdivision of Tripura’s South district after a mentally ill person was allegedly pushed into Indian territory from across the border on Friday.

BSF jawans detained the man late on Friday night and handed him over to local police. This is the third attempt of a similar attempt to push back a mentally-ill person since the last month.

South district magistrate Debapriya Bardhan told The Telegraph, “We have not been able to identify him. He said he lives on the other side of the border but is unable to tell the name of his village. Several parts of Bangladesh are also affected by the outbreak of Covid-19, including areas along the border with Tripura. So, we have sent the man to a quarantine facility. We also collected his blood samples and sent for testing.”

Tripura shares 856km international boundary with Bangladesh. The Indian government has erected barbed wire fencing 150 yards from the international border in accordance with the Indira-Mujib pact signed in 1971 and BSF-BDR border agreement signed in 1975. Around 60km of the border remains unfenced.

A BSF public relations officer (PRO) said similar incidents have taken place recently when Bangladeshi people pushed back mentally ill people inside the Indian territory through border areas that do not have a barbed wire fence.

“We have not found any motive to pushback mentally ill people to our territory, except clearing their area of undesired individuals and dumping them in India. Many such incidents have occurred in the recent past. The man crossed the Feni river and entered our territory. Later in the night, we detained the person and handed him over to the police administration,” the officer said.

South district superintendent of police Jal Singh Meena confirmed the report.

On April 12, a middle-aged mentally ill woman was left stranded on a small sandbar on the Feni in the same location, which divides India and Bangladesh in southern Tripura, for 11 days.

However, both BSF and Border Guards of Bangladesh (BGB) declined to accept her as a citizen of either country.

A few days later, the Bangladesh side took her and again sent her back.

At least 18 mentally ill individuals from Bangladesh are currently under treatment at the

Modern Psychiatric Hospital in Agartala.