New Age | Newspaper
Dhaka to take up issue strongly with Delhi
Mustafizur Rahman
The prime minister, Sheikh Hasina, on Monday asked the foreign and home ministers to take up strongly with New Delhi the issue of killing of Bangladeshis by the Indian Border Security to prevent further casualties from shooting on the frontiers.
Presiding over the weekly meeting of the cabinet at the secretariat, she said that killing of innocent citizens on the borders was not acceptable to Bangladesh, a minister told New Age.
Killing on the borders by BSF has continued despite repeated assurances from the Indian side to prevent such incidents. The Indian border guards killed 907 Bangladeshis between January 1, 2000 and March 31, 2011, according to rights watchdog Odhikar.
The prime ministers directives came a day after BSF had shot dead a Bangladeshi youth, Sanaullah in Naogaon frontier.
Hasina told the meeting that her government would take up the issue strongly with the Indian authorities so that the two countries come to an agreement on using non-lethal weapons on the borders, said the minister after the meeting.
She told her cabinet colleagues that the issue of border killings should feature prominently in the talks between Dhaka and New Delhi during Indian prime minister Manmohan Singhs upcoming visit to Bangladesh.
LGRD and cooperatives minister Syed Ashraful Islam raised the issue in the cabinet meeting referring to the recent incidents of killing on the borders.
The Indian home minister is expected in Dhaka ahead of the visit of Manmohan Singh when former would meet his Bangladesh counterpart Sahara Khatun to discuss long standing issues relating to security on the borders, said officials.
Sanaullah, a cattle trader, died on the spot on Sunday when BSF personnel of Agrabad camp in India fired into a group of people returning to Bangladesh with cattle. BSF took away the body.
This was the first such incident after the director generals of the Border Guard Bangladesh and the Border Security Force of India met in the BSF headquarters in New Delhi on March 12.
When the chiefs of the two border guards met in New Deli in March, Indian authorities decided to introduce non-lethal weapons for their border guards as a step to check killing of Bangladeshi civilians in the border. Bangladesh, earlier, proposed that Indian guards should use non-lethal weapons to ensure that no unarmed civilians were killed in the borders.
Over the years the BSF has killed one Bangladeshi every four days, according Odhikar.
During the two-day Dhaka-Delhi home secretary level talks in Dhaka in January this year, the Indian side assured Bangladesh of legal action against killing of unarmed civilians on the frontiers by the BSF after the killing of a teenage girl drew widespread condemnation from local and international rights organisations.
The BSF on January 7 shot dead Felani, a 15-year old girl, after she got entangled in the barbed-wire fence on the Kurigram border. She was returning with her father Nurul Islam Nuru, a resident of south Ramkhana at Nageswari in Kurigram. According to the post-mortem report, Felani was killed by a single bullet.
Dhaka to take up issue strongly with Delhi
Mustafizur Rahman
The prime minister, Sheikh Hasina, on Monday asked the foreign and home ministers to take up strongly with New Delhi the issue of killing of Bangladeshis by the Indian Border Security to prevent further casualties from shooting on the frontiers.
Presiding over the weekly meeting of the cabinet at the secretariat, she said that killing of innocent citizens on the borders was not acceptable to Bangladesh, a minister told New Age.
Killing on the borders by BSF has continued despite repeated assurances from the Indian side to prevent such incidents. The Indian border guards killed 907 Bangladeshis between January 1, 2000 and March 31, 2011, according to rights watchdog Odhikar.
The prime ministers directives came a day after BSF had shot dead a Bangladeshi youth, Sanaullah in Naogaon frontier.
Hasina told the meeting that her government would take up the issue strongly with the Indian authorities so that the two countries come to an agreement on using non-lethal weapons on the borders, said the minister after the meeting.
She told her cabinet colleagues that the issue of border killings should feature prominently in the talks between Dhaka and New Delhi during Indian prime minister Manmohan Singhs upcoming visit to Bangladesh.
LGRD and cooperatives minister Syed Ashraful Islam raised the issue in the cabinet meeting referring to the recent incidents of killing on the borders.
The Indian home minister is expected in Dhaka ahead of the visit of Manmohan Singh when former would meet his Bangladesh counterpart Sahara Khatun to discuss long standing issues relating to security on the borders, said officials.
Sanaullah, a cattle trader, died on the spot on Sunday when BSF personnel of Agrabad camp in India fired into a group of people returning to Bangladesh with cattle. BSF took away the body.
This was the first such incident after the director generals of the Border Guard Bangladesh and the Border Security Force of India met in the BSF headquarters in New Delhi on March 12.
When the chiefs of the two border guards met in New Deli in March, Indian authorities decided to introduce non-lethal weapons for their border guards as a step to check killing of Bangladeshi civilians in the border. Bangladesh, earlier, proposed that Indian guards should use non-lethal weapons to ensure that no unarmed civilians were killed in the borders.
Over the years the BSF has killed one Bangladeshi every four days, according Odhikar.
During the two-day Dhaka-Delhi home secretary level talks in Dhaka in January this year, the Indian side assured Bangladesh of legal action against killing of unarmed civilians on the frontiers by the BSF after the killing of a teenage girl drew widespread condemnation from local and international rights organisations.
The BSF on January 7 shot dead Felani, a 15-year old girl, after she got entangled in the barbed-wire fence on the Kurigram border. She was returning with her father Nurul Islam Nuru, a resident of south Ramkhana at Nageswari in Kurigram. According to the post-mortem report, Felani was killed by a single bullet.
