Srivastava brands people killed in BSF firing criminals as BDR-BSF talks end
The Indian Border Security Force director general Raman Srivastava on Monday claimed that most of the people killed in the BSF firing on the borders were ‘criminals’ and refused to call the incidents killing of civilians.
At a joint briefing after a six-day director-general level meeting between the border guards of the two countries in the city, the BSF chief said, ‘Almost half of the people dying in the borders are Indians…Most of them are Indian criminals and the rest are Bangladeshi criminals…It is not that the Bangladeshi people are particularly targeted.’
The Bangladesh Rifles director general, major general Rafiqul Islam, who led the 22-member home side to the talks, did not dispute his Indian counterpart’s claims.
Srivastava led a 20-member Indian delegation to the talks.
After signing a ‘joint records of discussion,’ Rafiqul Islam, said, ‘The outcome of the meeting is overall satisfactory but I am seriously concerned, particularly about border killings.’
The joint briefing began two and a half hours behind schedule at the BDR headquarters in the city.
The director-general level meeting between the border guards of Bangladesh and India began in the city on September 22 and concluded with a call to enhance confidence between the members of both the forces to check border crimes.
Referring to the November 26, 2008 terror attack on the Indian commercial capital Mumbai, the BSF chief claimed that terrorists were intruding into India through different border points and asked how the BSF would know if the intruders were terrorists or civilians when they trespassed at the dead of night.
‘There is no reason to move at night.’
‘But we have been trying our best to manage the situation …,’ he said.
To a question, Srivastava said he would prefer calling the incidents ‘death of Bangladeshi civilians’ to ‘killing’.
Describing the hospitality of the Bangladesh side as generous, the BSF chief said the people dying in the Indian territory must have crossed the border. ‘Once a person crosses a border, he commits criminal acts and they have violated the entity of the border.’
The BSF DG claimed that in some of the cases, the civilians attacked Indian border forces prompting the latter to retaliate.
‘We are a border guarding force; we are supposed to guard the borders. Please, try to understand that such incidents [BSF firing] take place under certain circumstances,’ he said.
‘But,’ Srivastava said, ‘we are trying to address the issue.’
According to rights organisation Odhikar, some 875 Bangladeshi nationals were killed, 923 shot and wounded and 933 people were abducted by the BSF between January 1, 2000 and August 31, 2010. Of them 49 people were killed in last nine months.
The Bangladesh Rifles and Indian Border Security Force had agreed to halt killing of innocent civilians in the last director general-level meeting held in March 7-12, 2010 in New Delhi.
But at least 32 Bangladeshi civilians were killed in BSF firing since then.
The BDR DG, major general Rafiqul Islam, told the briefing, ‘I expressed serious concern about the killings and the issue is also reflected in the joint records of discussion.’ He said that the BSF chief had assured him that he would look into the matter and pass the matter to the relevant agencies in India so that border killings were stopped ‘immediately.’
Killing of civilians on the borders was one of the major issues the Bangladesh side had raised in the meeting while the Indian side proposed to impose curfew in the frontier areas at night, Rafiq said. ‘But I do not think it is necessary.’
‘A decision in this regard depends on the government. However, we maintain vigilance to stop illegal movement.’ he said.
Rafiqul Islam said the other major issue the Bangladesh side had raised at the meeting was ‘drug menace’. He said the Bangladesh side had asked its Indian counterparts to take steps to stop smuggling of drugs ‘which is spoiling our young people.’
‘From intelligence sources we have come to know about some suspected places [in India] where particularly Phensedyl is bottled and packed to smuggle it into Bangladesh,’ the BDR chief said.
Nearly two million bottles of Phensedyl have been seized across the country by the law enforcers and the narcotics control department since January 2009, officials said.
The narcotic liquid, the ingredients of which include codeine phosphate and ephedrine, are smuggled into Bangladesh by buses and trucks, hidden in baggage and luggage, and peddlers individually through the borders, according to the narcotics control department.
About the BDR measures to check cross-border crimes, Rafiqul Islam said they would strengthen night-time patrol in the frontier areas so that civilians did not cross the border.
On May 16, 2010, the Bangladesh authorities imposed restrictions on night-time movement of people in the border areas to avert killing of Bangladeshis by the BSF.
‘We have a list of the border spots where most of the smuggling takes place,’ he said but did not name the places ‘due to security reasons’.
Rafiqul said the BSF would provide the BDR with the names of more such spots ‘so that we can intensify patrol there.’
About the territories in adverse possession, both of the sides agreed to refer the cases to the Joint Boundary Working Group’s meeting scheduled to be held in November next, after four years since 2006.
The BDR chief said, ‘We have agreed to enhance the confidence of the forces working on both sides of the border…We will arrange different competitions…’
The BSF has identified some unfenced areas where most of the smuggling takes places and the two sides exchanged lists of such spots so that both the forces could intensify patrol, the meeting was told.
BDR sources said they had given the Indian side a list of 63 Bangladeshi criminals hiding in India, while the BSF handed over a list of 79 Indian criminals allegedly staying in Bangladesh.
Sources who had attended the meeting said the other issues discussed in the meeting included border violation by BSF and Indian nationals, obstruction to revetment and other construction works in border areas, push-in of Bangla-speaking Indian nationals into Bangladesh, arms smuggling and women and children trafficking.
