Mamata Banerjee on Monday felicitated 94 fishermen, who spent over two-and-a-half-months in Bangladeshi prisons for inadvertently crossing the international maritime boundary line (IMBL), on their homecoming before decrying their physical torture while in incarceration in the neighbouring country.

“I saw some of them limping and asked, what happened? They told me that they were beaten up…. Their hands and legs were tied up and then they were beaten up with sticks. Some of them have injuries from the waist downwards,” the chief minister said, before instructing the South 24-Parganas district authorities to ensure proper treatment of the injured fishermen.

Mamata met the fishermen after they reached Sagar Island on Monday afternoon and handed over cheques for ₹10,000 to each of them. She gave a cheque for ₹2 lakh to the wife of one of the apprehended fishermen, who jumped into the sea while trying to escape after the Bangladesh Coast Guard arrested the Indian fisherfolk. He hasn’t
been traced.

The chief minister was on Sagar Island to oversee the preparations for Gangasagar Mela to be held between January 9 and 17.

After narrating the plight of the fishermen in Bangladeshi jails, Mamata went on to compare how the authorities on this side of the border took proper care of 90-odd fishermen from Bangladesh, who were detained on the Indian side of IMBL and sent back on Sunday.

“Bangladeshi fishermen had also strayed into our side (last month).... Some of them had fallen ill. We ensured treatment for them and took proper care before sending them back,” she said, before adding that her government took all the initiatives to ensure that the image of “Bengal and the country” was not sullied.

Although the chief minister was guarded in her comments and did not utter a word against Muhammad Yunus or the Bangladeshi authorities, her comparison of the treatment of fishermen in the two countries was an indictment of the interim government.

The new regime has already come under severe criticism from various political parties in India for the alleged atrocities on the minority communities in Bangladesh after the fall of the Sheikh Hasina government in the face of a wave of protest. The Narendra Modi government has also taken up the matter of the “safety and security” of minorities with the Yunus government.

A strategic affairs expert told this newspaper that Mamata’s comments on the physical torture of the fisherfolk were likely to open another front in the New Delhi-Dhaka relationship that nosedived after Hasina’s fall.

“Such breaches of the IMBL by the fishermen have always been a regular affair as the boundary is not clearly delineated on the sea.... Earlier, the fishermen used to get detained and then pushed back. This time they were not only arrested but were also physically tortured. This is a clear act of hostility towards India,” said the Calcutta-
based expert.

With several key players in the Yunus-led administration and parties like the BNP and the Jamaat-e-Islami, which are providing political legitimacy to the government, attacking India regularly, the last five months have seen an unprecedented rise in anti-India sentiments in Bangladesh.

“India and Bangladesh are neighbours and we should love each other…. But our fishermen became victims of the situation,” said Mamata, before adding that she had kept New Delhi posted on the plight of the fishermen in Bangladesh.

The chief minister also took care to explain how the state government tried its best to track the fishermen after they strayed into the Bangladeshi side of IMBL and were arrested by the coast guard in the neighbouring country.

“Do u know how we found them? We had given ID cards to all fishermen so that if anyone got lost, they could be tracked.... After we learnt that these people were detained, we tried everything for their release,” said Mamata, as she tried to underscore the role played by the state government in bringing back the fishermen.

Reacting to Mamata’s allegation, Shafiqul Alam, press secretary to Yuinus, said: “There has not been any case of ill-treating or mistreating Indian fishermen. This is wrong information and part of propaganda against Bangladesh.”

A political observer said Mamata’s comments on fishermen would have an impact on domestic politics at a time when the BJP’s state unit was trying to use developments in Bangladesh to consolidate Hindu votes in Bengal.

“The BJP is spinning a narrative that Mamata’s politics of Muslim appeasement will create a Bangladesh-like situation in Bengal.... Earlier she tried to counter it by decrying the atrocities on minorities in Bangladesh,” said the observer.

By criticising the physical torture of the fishermen and compensating them, she intensified her effort to drill holes into the BJP’s narrative, he added.