In the first week of November 2016, this writer, as part of a distinguished three-member fact-finding team of experts set up under UN-mandated program, undertook a rapid appraisal of the work of the voluntary agency Masum, which operates in four districts along the Indo-Bangladesh border in the Indian state of West Bengal. The agency seeks to prevent or deal with torture and extrajudicial execution by central and state security forces deployed along the international border. The team found that far from posing a threat to national security, the organisation is actually working to defend the human