Frontier shootout issue to dominate B'desh-India talks

Anisur Rahman
Dhaka, Jan 17 (PTI) The border shootouts will dominate
Bangladesh-India talks as the top Home Ministry officials from
the two countries meet here for a two-day session this week,
reports said here on Monday.
"There will be many issues on the table, but our main
focus will be the non-stop killing of Bangladeshi citizens
around the borders," Home Secretary Abdus Sobhan Sikder was
quoted as saying by the Daily Star newspaper.
The paper quoted another senior Home Ministry official
as saying that Dhaka would register a strong protest against
the "killing of innocent Bangladeshi civilians" on the border
as the two-day talks would start with the meeting of a joint
working group tomorrow.
Paramilitary Bangladesh Rifles (BDR) chief Major Gen
Rafiqul Islam last week told PTI the frontier force decided to
refer the matter of the "trigger happiness" of India's Border
Security Force to the Home Ministry with requests to take up
the issue with the higher authorities in India.
"I am simply disappointed... as our (BDR) efforts to
convince our counterparts to stop the killing visibly failed,"
he said.
Leading rights group 'Odhikar' earlier this month
released a report claiming that 74 Bangladeshis were killed
and 72 others injured on the frontiers in the past one year.
"Fifty of the dead were killed in shootout and 24
others were brutally tortured to death by Border Security
Force troops" along some 4,000-kilometers porous borders, it
claimed but according to newspaper reports at least three more
Bangladeshis were killed in the past 10 days since Odhikar
published the report.
The BDR Director General said the issue dominated his
past two talks with his counterpart in Border Security Force
while "every time they assured us of looking into the matter
as we asked them to follow the rules of engagement and arrest
and return the trespassers instead of shooting them dead".
Officials, earlier said, the matter was also discussed
during Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's talks with her
counterpart Manmohan Singh in January last year in New Delhi
while she again raised the issue with the Indian premier on
the sidelines of the South Asian Association for Regional
Cooperation (SAARC) summit in Thimphu later.
Hundreds of frontier villagers last week staged
protests at northwestern Kurigram frontier after BSF men
allegedly shot 15-year-old girl Falani as she was trying to
return home from India, where she was engaged in a job.
Police and reports said Falani was shot in her right
shoulder and died instantly as her clothes got entangled in
the barbed wire fencing on the borders.
Home Minister Sahara Khatun on Sunday said that
Bangladesh would raise the killing of Felani in the
Secretary-level talks. PTI AR
EKA



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