Security personnel and local residents say the number of undocumented Bangladeshi nationals attempting to return to their country has risen sharply.

Beside a pitch road that opens into a narrow, dusty mud bylane at the Hakimpur BSF border outpost in West Bengal’s North 24 Parganas, a stretch has become an informal departure corridor for "illegal Bangladeshis", who lived in the state for years.

Under a sprawling banyan tree, families with small cloth bags, children clutching plastic bottles, and men waiting on their haunches formed a silent queue on Saturday, repeating a single plea before BSF personnel: “Let us go home.”

Across the South Bengal border belt, security personnel and local residents say the number of undocumented Bangladeshi nationals attempting to return to their country h

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