Border killings barrier to good ties with India: Foreign Adviser

Describing border killings as unacceptable, Foreign Affairs Adviser Md Touhid Hossain on Monday said such killing is a barrier to creating good relations between Bangladesh and India.

Talking to reporters at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Touhid said border killings were reported when the two neighbouring countries were reportedly going through a golden chapter. “There has been no change in this trend.”

The adviser said the issue of maintaining friendly relations is not limited to two governments but it is a matter of peoples from both sides.

“There is a repercussion across the country when an individual is killed along the border. That is a negative repercussion which we do not want,” he said.

Within a span of eight days, the Indian Border Security Force (BSF) personnel gunned down another Bangladeshi teen and injured two others including the teen’s father along the Baliadangi border in Thakurgaon early Monday, said the police.

The deceased was Joyanta Kumar Singha, 15, while the injured were Joyanta’s father Mahadev Kumar Singha, and Bangdu Mohammad, of Fakir Bhita village in the upazila.

Baliadangi police station Officer-in-Charge Firoz Kabir said one person died and two others sustained bullet injuries in the BSF firing while they were trying to cross the border.

The injured are undergoing treatment at Rangpur Medical College Hospital, he said, adding that the BSF troops took away the body.

Lt Col Tanjir Ahmed, commandant of the Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB) Battalion-50 in Thakurgaon, said they are in touch with the BSF to bring back the body.

On 1 September, 13-year-old Shwarna Das, of Juri upazila in Moulvibazar district, was shot dead by the BSF troops.

Around 45 hours after the incident, the BSF returned the body to Bangladesh after a flag meeting with the BGB.

In the protest note sent to the Indian High Commission in Dhaka on Thursday, Bangladesh strongly protested and condemned such ruthless acts and expressed deep concern over the incidents.

Bangladesh reminded that such incidents of border killing are undesirable and unwarranted and such actions are in violation of the provisions of the Joint Indo-Bangladesh Guidelines for Border Authorities, 1975.

The government called upon the government of India to stop the repetition of such heinous acts and conduct enquiries into all border killings, identify the responsible persons and bring them to justice.