Dhaka  - More than 100 smuggled Bangladeshi women have been deported from India back to Bangladesh over the past week at checkpoints along the porous 460-kilometre border, a prominent body of local women lawyers said Tuesday.

The deportees had spent two years in Indian jails for illegally crossing the border into India, lured by offers of jobs and marriage by human traffickers, the National Women Lawyers Association said.

Association chief Salma Ali said her organization had contacted the authorities in India to arrange their return home after more than three years of punishment, including forced labour in brothels across the border.

A majority of the 105 women were handed over to the association by the Indian Border Security Force (BSF) at the Benapole checkpoint in Bangladesh.

Powerful human trafficking rings operate on both sides of the common frontier preying on young women and children from impoverished villages, local officials say. (dpa)