Love knows no boundaries, and 22-year-old Bangladeshi woman Krishna Mandal's story is the perfect example -- one that has all the ingredients of a Bollywood blockbuster. Suffused with courage and filled with hope, Krishna swam across the border to marry her boyfriend in India. However, her quest for love eventually landed her in jail in the eastern Indian state of Bengal. Also read: Bangladeshi women choosing trained midwives for safe childbirth: Studies In fact, the duo recently met on Facebook, fell in love and decided to tie the knot -- a tale that will make Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg a happy man. As Abhik did not have a passport, Krishna reportedly decided to take a strenuous journey to meet him. She swam across the Malta river for over an hour and made her way to the Sunderbans to finally reach India. Abhik, who was waiting for her in Kaikhali village of West Bengal's South 24 Parganas district, whisked her off to the 'City of Joy' (Kolkata) in a car, where they got married in a temple. Also read: It is better to have loved and married, than surrendered to cancer As the news became viral on WhatsApp, Kolkata Police soon took her into custody for illegally entering India. "She has been remanded in judicial custody by a court and we will soon apprise the Bangladesh High Commission of the arrest," a police officer told the local media.

A 60-year-old Bangladeshi woman was charred to death while two others sustained injuries in a major fire that broke out at a guest house in the eastern Indian city of Kolkata early on Saturday morning. The blaze started at the reception on the second floor of the guest house in Mirza Ghalib Street at 4am and soon engulfed 11 rooms in the building, officials said. "Some 28 Bangladeshi nationals were staying at the guest house at the time of the fire. While the elderly woman died in the fire, the two other Bangladeshi nationals have been hospitalised with injuries," a senior Kolkata Police officer told the local media. The deceased was identified as Samimatul Begum, the officer said. A Kolkata Fire Service official said that three tenders took nearly two hours to contain the blaze. "The 11 rooms were completely gutted in the fire," he said. READ: 7 dead in India slum fire An electrical short-circuit seemed to have triggered the deadly fire, the official said. "Anyway, a probe has been ordered and we will also check if the guest house had fire safety clearance from the department." Fires are common at guest houses and small hotels in India because of lax enforcement of inferno safety regulations. READ: 12 buses set on fire in Faridpur

A Bangladeshi woman who went to the African nation Mauritius last year through a recruiting agency has filed a case  accusing the company of human trafficking. According to the case statement, the woman was taken to Fire Mount Textile Company in Mauritius after she reached there on February 5, 2020.  From then she started working as a helper there although the company didn’t pay her wages regularly. Md Shah Alam,43, a Bangladeshi man who used to run the worker’s canteen and his assistants Furkan, Siddique and Aslam used to threaten her as she refused the indecent proposal of the company’s owner through them. One day they took her to the owner Anil Kohli’s house saying he had complained against her. She was raped there by Anil Kohli and they captured footage of her. Later they raped her many times and forced her to have physical relationships with others, threatening to spread the video footage on social media. Also read: Trafficking Report: Bangladesh still on Tier 2 They even made her abort a child as she became pregnant at one point, she claimed in her statement. On December 28, 2020, the woman was sent back to Bangladesh with the condition of not filing any complaint against them and before that in November they recruited her father in her  place. Since she filed the complaint her father is being threatened by the perpetrators now, she said. According to her more than 600 Bangladeshi women work in that factory where Shah Alam, Furkan, Siddique, Aslam forcefully engage them in prostitution and the owner Anil Kohli oppresses them. After the news was broadcast in Bangladeshi and Mauritius news media the culprits are trying to convince her to solve the matter outside the court through different ways. Also read: Trafficking of 26 Bangladeshis killed in Libya: Bail of 4 accused suspended The woman filed the case with the help of the BRAC Migration program that helped her to recover from the traumatizing incident that happened with her. Head of the BRAC Migration program Shariful Hasan said the description the victim gave was grim. Sexually oppressing and engaging in forceful prostitution in the name of recruitment in a foreign country falls under human trafficking, he said. The Government of Mauritius and Bangladesh should jointly investigate the matter, if any other Bangladeshi immigrant worker is being oppressed like this, said Shariful Hasan.

In 2016, she started small -- out of the same premises she lives with her family -- more of an experiment than a business. Today, Nasrin Sultana, a resident of Jhikorgaccha upazila's Barbakpur village, is a successful woman entrepreneur who owns a vermicomposting unit.