At least 20 Bangladeshi nationals, including a member of the Border Guard Bangladesh, have been killed in the firing of the Indian Border Security Force since June 2023, when border force top leadership from both the countries sat in Delhi and discussed how to lower the number of civilian killings on and along the border.
Eighteen Bangladeshis were killed with 17 others injured and two others drowned between July and December 2023, while two others were killed in January, according to a tally prepared by rights group Ain O Salish Kendra.
Separate Bangladesh officials on Monday told New Age that they once again tabled border killings top on their discussion at the director general-level talks scheduled to begin today (Tuesday).
Newly appointed BGB director general Major General Mohammad Ashrafuzzaman Siddiqui will lead the Bangladesh delegation.
Neither he nor his officials made any comment on the event but a senior official who is closely involved with the setting of agenda said that apart from border killings, a number of other border issues would be discussed in the biannual Dhaka meet.
A delegation led by Border Security Force director general Nitin Agrawal was slated to reach Dhaka today (Tuesday) to discuss issues related to curbing a variety of cross-frontier crimes and measures to create better coordination between the two countries’ security forces and agencies, Press Trust of India reports.
BSF South Bengal officials declined to comment on the agenda. The DG-level border talks were held annually between 1975 and 1992, from 1993 the talks were bi-annual, alternately held in the national capitals New Delhi and Dhaka. The 53rd round was held in Delhi in June 2023, while this would be the 54th edition of the talks.
Bangladesh shares a 4,156-kilometre land border with five Indian states. On January 22, the Indian BSF shot dead BGB member Mohammad Roisudddin along the Benapole border in Jashore in the early hours. Roisudddin was posted to the 49th Border Guard Battalion in the district.
Kirity Roy, the founder secretary of India’s Hoogly-based Manabadhikar Suraksha Mancha, told New Age that they do not want to see any border killings.
Calling the border killings a ‘blatant violation of international laws,’ former National Human Rights Commission chairman Mizanur Rahman said that such killings of Bangladeshi people are affecting people-to-people relations in both countries.
Rights group ASK documented that 30 Bangladeshis were killed at the hands of the Indian BSF alone in 2023, while the number was 23, including 16 shooting deaths in 2022. In 2021, the number of shooting deaths was 16, and another was reportedly tortured to death. The rights group recorded 42 shooting deaths in 2020.
Border killings dropped slightly in 2021 after the then BSF chief, Rakesh Asthana, in a joint press conference following the 50th border conference concluded in Dhaka in September 2020, promised to bring the number of such killings to zero.
At least 1,236 Bangladeshis were killed and 1,145 injured in the shooting by the Indian border force between 2000 and 2020, according to rights group Odhikar.—Agencies
