CALCUTTA, 11 September 2004 — The body of a 10-year-old Bangladeshi boy was finally carried across the India-Bangladesh border yesterday bringing down the curtains on a shocking tale of governmental callousness.

Yesterday, West Bengal government officials, accompanied by a Bangladesh deputy high commission representative, handed Mohammad Munna’s body to his wailing parents at the Petrapole border crossing for burial in Jessore’s Birampur village.

Munna — kidnapped by a gang of child-lifters and smuggled into India — was found by Border Security Force (BSF) men in West Bengal’s Nadia district in July 2003. A judge ordered that he be sheltered in a home for children and sent back to his parents in Bangladesh as soon as possible.

So the BSF packed him off to Dhruba Ashram on Calcutta’s outskirts and asked the state government to make arrangements to repatriate the young boy at the earliest as ordered by the judge. But Munna’s case got entangled in the proverbial bureaucratic red tape.

As investigations dragged on, Munna wept for his parents and siblings. He played with other inmates but longed to return home. Ashram officials consoled him that he would soon be reunited with his folks. But that was not to be. Apparently, Dhaka gave the green signal to Munna’s repatriation. And New Delhi sent instructions to Calcutta to hand him over to Bangladeshi officials at the Petrapole border crossing. But West Bengal government officials — notorious for slackness — simply sat on the file.

Last Saturday, Munna suddenly fell ill and was admitted to Calcutta’s R.G. Kar Medical College Hospital where he was diagnosed with meningitis. He died on Sunday despite the best efforts of doctors who tried to save his life.

After his death, the Ashram got in touch with Bangladeshi Deputy High Commission to collect Munna’s body. The high commission officials soon realized that Dhaka and Delhi had agreed long ago to repatriate Munna but the West Bengal government failed to execute the order.

So Munna’s body was kept in the morgue. Calcutta officials first blamed New Delhi and Dhaka. When they were ticked off by the Indian Foreign Ministry, the hunt for Munna’s file started. The file was tracked down on Thursday and Munna’s body was dispatched across the border. “It would have been a different story altogether if Munna was a rich businessman’s son. The media would have played up the story of his abduction.

And Delhi, Dhaka and Calcutta would have been galvanized into collective action.

"But Munna’s crime was the he was the son of a poor man," said Sougato Hazra, who heads the Association for Protection of Democratic Rights.

Meanwhile, West Bengal Human Rights Commission has taken notice of the state government’s bungling and sought an explanation from the chief secretary for the inordinate delay in Munna’s repatriation.