The Border Security Force on Saturday night caught an Indian youth and a 19-year-old Bangladeshi woman when they illegally sneaked into India through a porous spot of the boundary at Bhimpur in Nadia district.

While Jaykanto Chandra Roy, 24, is from Santipur-Ballabhpur in Nadia district, the woman is a resident of Khulna in Bangladesh.

Roy, the son of a farmer, had illegally crossed over to Bangladesh in March ostensibly to marry the woman with whom he had interacted through social media for a year.

According to Roy, BSF sources said, he had married the woman in March and stayed there till Saturday before making their way to India.

The duo were apprehended by the BSF’s 82-Battalion. The BSF questioned the two at the border outpost and later handed them over to Bhimpur police. The police arrested them and booked them for illegally crossing the border. They were produced in a court in Krishnagar on Sunday and remanded in judicial custody for 14 days. The woman was eventually sent to a home in Krishnagar.

A BSF spokesperson said: “The youth is an Indian but he went to Bangladesh illegally and returned with a woman illegally sneaking through an unfenced border point with the help of touts. The Bangladeshi woman will be charged under Foreigners’ Act.”

During the interrogation, Roy has apparently revealed that he entered Bangladesh with the help of tout from Taraknagar. On June 26, he paid Rs 10,000 to a Bangladeshi broker to return to India by crossing the border.

A senior officer of the BSF’s south Bengal frontier in Calcutta said: “The youth and the woman claimed to be a couple. Nevertheless, the intention of the youth was not quite clear to us. We are committed to preventing trafficking of women. Human traffickers often adopt new methods and trap innocent girls and push them into prostitution.”

A senior officer of Bhimpur police station said: “This is a quite unusual case. Love united this couple beyond the geographical boundary but law separated them. It is now for the court to decide the future of the couple.”

A lawyer said the Indian youth should have adopted legal means to live happily ever after with his wife. “He should have brought the woman to India on a tourist visa and married her here. Tying the nuptial knot under the special marriage act could have helped the girl get a residential visa.”