India to B’desh: Cough up terrorists

Tuesday, August 26, 2008 at 5:08 am

Bangladesh Rifles (BDR) and Indian Border Security Force (BSF) chiefs have exchanged lists of “fugitive terrorists” at the end of a four-day biannual meeting in Dhaka and agreed to intensify cooperation to minimise cross-border crime and resolve outstanding issues.

Speaking at a joint press briefing late yesterday (August 24) BDR Director-General Major General Shakil Ahmed said that he handed over a list of 1,464 people to his BSF counterpart Ashish Kumar Mitra and received 263 names of wanted criminals taking shelter across the border. “We have already made our position clear by categorically saying we never give shelter to any insurgents,” Ahmed said.

The border forces of the two neighbouring countries also agreed on four other issues including identifying areas of the border vulnerable to trans-border crime. “We have identified border areas vulnerable to trans-border crime which would be jointly patrolled by the frontier forces of the two countries,” Mitra said.

The Director-General level talks between the two paramilitary forces came a month after the two BDR soldiers were killed in BSF gunfire at north western frontiers. “I apologise for that,” Mitra said but called it an isolated incident while an enquiry was underway to take actions against the persons responsible.

He, however, said the two border forces guard more than 4,000 km and therefore it would be quite unreasonable to expect that nothing is going to happen on this long border guarded by more than 100,000 armed people on both sides.

Mitra said the BSF had ordered night-time curfew on most areas along its border with Bangladesh along side erecting barbed wire fencing and using flood lights to stop infiltration as “we do not want anyone to be killed” in the frontiers.

Both BDR and BSF agreed to share information on cattle smuggling under a pilot project as the porous Bangladesh-India border in recent time witnessed incidents of shootouts in most cases centring on cattle smuggling. Officials familiar with the meeting said BDR agreed to arrest illegal cattle traders.

Mitra told reporters that the number of crimes largely dropped along some 200 kilometres of the border where floodlights were installed while so far fencing along 2,000 kilometres of the border have also been erected. Ahmed led a 22-member Bangladesh delegation while Mitra headed a 19-member Indian team at the conference.

Mitra said BSF and BDR have agreed to go for joint patrolling in the areas which are vulnerable to trans-border crime. “Both sides will make an assessment on the vulnerable areas and exchange the lists in September. After that, we will carry out joint patrolling,” he said adding the step has been taken considering the fact that it was physically not possible to guard every inch of Indo-Bangla border.

Describing cattle smuggling as the root cause of 95% firing incidents along Indo-Bangla border, Mitra said the meeting decided that the local-level officers would contact each other whenever cattle smuggling is detected and make it clear that they were resorting to firing on smugglers and not on the border guards of the other side. “It is a pilot project. We have identified two spots in West Bengal. Let’s see how it works,” he said.

The BSF chief said both sides agreed to ensure completion of all development work, which are being hampered due to various reasons, in the border areas by December. Asked about the completion of fencing along the 4,095 km border, he said it has not been completed so far due to Bangladesh’s objection to construction activities within 150 yards of the international border.

“Since it is not possible to strictly follow Bangladesh’s suggestion, we requested them to allow us to carry out construction even within 15 yards in some areas. The BDR assured us to take up the issue with their government,” he said. Mitra said the BDR also requested BSF to take up the responsibility of maintaining boundary pillars which is now done by the respective state governments. (PTI)

( This post is from an independent writer. The opinions and views expressed herein are those of the author and are not endorsed by APakistanNews.Com.)

India to B’desh: Cough up terrorists

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