India’s Border Security Force (BSF) has shot and killed a total of 15 innocent Bangladeshis, in the first six months of 2013, according to a report by human rights organisation Odhikar. The Indian security men have also injured 53 and abducted 60 Bangladeshis in the same period, the report added. Giving details about the BSF’s “killing spree”, the Odhikar report said 38 Bangladeshis had been shot dead in 2012, and 31 suffered a similar fate in 2011. The toll was 74 and 98, in 2010 and 2009, respectively.
BSF men had also injured 100 and abducted 74 Bangladeshi nationals last year. In 2011, the Indian border guards had injured 62 people and abducted 23 from Bangladeshi territory, the report added.
Analysts blamed the Bangladesh government’s “submissive policy” towards India and the ban on cattle trading between the two countries, for the killings.
“The BSF atrocities are continuing for years, because Bangladesh failed to lodge a strong protest against the border killings, at an international forum,” Odhikar general secretary Adilur Rahman Khan told The Independent.
“Every time, BSF covers up its brutality by giving the lame excuse that those killed were cattle smugglers, and the Indian security men had fired on them in self-defence. But it’s simply not understandable how unarmed rustlers, as BSF claimed, can attack a well-equipped force, and to what extent it was rational to shoot to kill,” he added.
Khan said matters have come to such a pass that Bangladeshi farmers and fishermen were afraid to work near the border, because of pillage and abductions by BSF men. “They forcefully take away people from inside Bangladesh. They torture them in broad daylight and, sometimes, they jab the victims with lethal injections, leading to slow and painful deaths,” he said.
“If the present or pat Bangladeshi governments had raised the issue more assertively, India would have been forced to restrain its forces from such aggression,” he added.
Professor Imtiaz Ahmed, teacher of international relations at Dhaka University, said that the core problem was cattle smuggling.
“A huge amount of money is involved in cross-border cattle smuggling. However, the main culprits operate from behind the scenes, and use poor people to carry out their nefarious activities. If cattle trade is legalised between Bangladesh and India, the border killings will come down,” Ahmed said.
Whatever the reason, it was wrong on the BSF’s part to fire on unarmed people, said Major General (retd) Muniruzzaman, president of Bangladesh Institute of Peace and Security Studies. “There are laws in place against illegal intrusion. BSF should not fire in any case,” he said.
Accusing Dhaka of indifference to the problem, he said, “We don’t see any strong protest from the government against the BSF killings. The government’s inaction has encouraged the BSF to continue its killing spree at the frontiers.”
Muniruzzaman suggested raising the issue at an international forum. “No sovereign country can afford such killing of its citizens by a foreign force. If the Indian government fails to restrain BSF, Bangladesh should draw global attention to the atrocities against its citizens,” he said.
-With The Independent input
