Fatal steps in India's no man's land
By Syed Tashfin Chowdhury
DHAKA - Felani Khatun, a 15-year-old Bangladeshi girl living in India,
wanted to reach her village of Banarvita in the Kurigram district of
Bangladesh to get married to a Bangladeshi man with whom her wedding
had been arranged. The only hurdle for her was the international
border at Anantapur, India, that separated her from Bangladesh on the
other side.
Felani's father, Nurul Islam, had been living illegally in Assam,
India, for the past 10 years. While working as a rickshaw-puller in
the area, he had married and had three children besides Felani. In a
bid to get Felani to his village prior to her wedding, Islam had
sought the help of two cattle smugglers, Buzrat and Mosharraf Hossain,
in exchange of 3,000 Indian rupees (US$66).
Guided by the smugglers, Islam was able to cross the barbed-wired
border fence on a wooden ladder at around 6am on January 7. Felani was
not so lucky. As soon as she had reached the top of the ladder and was
about to jump over to the other side, part of her clothing became
entangled on the fence. Scared, she started to scream in fear at what
could happen next. That was probably one of her last few thoughts.
Before Islam could quieten his daughter, patrolling Indian Border
Security Force (BSF) personnel heard her cries, spotted her on top of
the fence and shot her at around 6:15am. Although Islam managed to
escape, eye witnesses claimed Felani cried for water for the next 30
minutes before taking her last breath.
Around five hours later, BSF personnel took her body down from the
fence. They then tied her hands and arms to a pole, much like an
animal, and carried her off, eye witnesses said. Felani's body was
handed over to Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB) personnel the next day.
The ornaments Felani had worn for her wedding while crossing the
border were missing from her body, according to a fact-finding report
by Odhikar, a non-government organization promoting human rights in
Bangladesh.
The incident, which took place on January 7 this year, has enraged
Bangladeshis at home and abroad, and has also highlighted the nature
of human-rights violations carrying on unabated at the
Bangladesh-India border at the hands of BSF personnel. A recent Human
Rights Watch report on human-rights violations around the borders is
also leading people to question Bangladesh's weak foreign policy, as
the government has has done little to press Indian authorities on the
BSF's behavior.
Almost a week after the border killing, during a two-day meeting in
Dhaka between Indian and Bangladesh officials at the home secretary
level, the Indian government expressed regret at Felani's death. On
January 19, the Indian delegation at the 10th meeting of a joint
working group formed to mitigate conflicts at the border was led by
Shambhu Singh, a government official, while the 11-member Bangladesh
team was led by Joint Secretary Kamal Uddin Ahmed.
Bangladesh urged Indian authorities to take effective measures to halt
casualties from shootings by the BSF, as was reported by various media
the next day. Bangladesh had earlier proposed the use of non-lethal
weapons by Indian border guards against unarmed civilians, but Indian
authorities made no official response to the proposal.
At the next day's meeting of the two delegations, India said it had
initiated a "court of inquiry" into Felani's killing. "We have already
instituted a court of inquiry to investigate the death of a
Bangladeshi minor girl ... The guilty will be punished," Indian Home
Secretary Gopal Krishna Pillai said at a joint news briefing after the
two-day meeting at the Sheraton Hotel in Dhaka.
However, Pillai waived away the claims of human-rights organizations
that around 930 Bangladeshis have been killed by the BSF at the
India-Bangladesh border since 2000. Four Bangladeshis were killed in
January 2011, according to Odhikar. (By comparison, the number of
people killed seeking to cross the Berlin Wall in its 28-year history
was variously put at from below 100 to above 200.)
"The number of such deaths on the border fell to 31 in 2010, while 61
BSF members were injured during that time," Pillai was quoted as
saying by Bangladeshi newspaper New Age in an article published on
January 21. "I still stand committed to zero deaths of unarmed
civilians on the border."
Gawhar Rizvi, a foreign affairs adviser to Bangladeshi Prime Minister
Sheikh Hasina, disclosed during a seminar at the House of Lords in
London on January 24 that the Indian government has "suspended two
border guards in connection with Felani's killing."
Nevertheless, human-rights experts and organizations in Bangladesh
believe the killing of unarmed Bangladeshi civilians at the border
will continue.
"India is at fault here and they should be held responsible for
violating human rights," Mizanur Rahman, chairman of the National
Human Rights Commission of Bangladesh, told Asia Times Online.
According to international standards, even if the civilians are
"unlawful intruders", they still have the right to be "tried and
punished according to their crimes", but India gets away with such
crimes all the time due to the power it exerts, he said.
A Odhikar's monthly report of January 2011, listing human-rights
violations in Bangladesh, said, "According to the Memorandum of
Understanding and related treaties signed between the two countries,
if citizens of the two countries illegally cross the border, it would
be considered trespass and as per law those persons should be handed
over to the civilian authority."
Yet it has been seen time and again that "India has been violating
treaties, shooting at anyone seen near the border or anyone trying to
cross the border, which is a clear violation of international law and
human rights," the report said.
The two countries have signed the Indira-Mujib Agreement of 1974 and
the Joint Indo-Bangladesh Guidelines of 1975 to resolve issues and
conflicts at the border.
In its report, Odhikar urged the Bangladesh government to "take
effective steps with the Indian Government to ensure the prevention of
further firing and killings by the BSF".
Despite assurances from the Indian home secretary, the report pointed
out that the BSF reportedly killed four Bangladeshis at the border
last month. Of these, three were allegedly shot and one was tortured
to death. "Furthermore, two were reported abducted by the BSF during
this period," the report said.
The Odhikar website states that around 74 Bangladeshi nationals were
killed by the BSF in 2010.
"This is clearly a failure of Bangladesh's weak foreign policy. The
Bangladesh government has failed miserably at persuading their Indian
counterparts to stop the BSF's atrocities at the border," Adilur
Rahman Khan, Odhikar's secretary and an advocate of the Supreme Court
of Bangladesh, told Asia Times Online.
"The persistent occurrences of these incidents can mean one of two
things. One, the Indian authorities are insincere about their promises
to the Bangladesh counterparts. Two, the BSF is out of control of the
Indian authorities."
The number of killings by the BSF over the past decade meant the
border could easily be considered "the most dangerous border in the
world", said Khan. Even at the Palestine-Israel border, shootings
occur from both sides. The shootings are mostly one-sided at the
India-Bangladesh border," he said, pointing to a Human Rights Watch
(HRW) report published in December 2010 and titled "Trigger Happy:
Excessive Use of Force by Indian Troops at the Bangladesh Border",
that covers the issue.
The HRW report, written in collaboration with Odhikar in Bangladesh
and Indian human-rights group Banglar Manabadhikar Suraksha Mancha
(MASUM), consists of investigations on both sides of the border.
HRW interviews in the report found that "virtually all serious
allegations of torture and killings were against the BSF". The cases
were reported from victims in the Indian districts of Murshidabad,
Nadia, Coochbehar, and North 24 Parganas. In Bangladesh, cases were
found from the border districts of Jessore, Satkhira, Naogaon,
Chapainababganj, Chuadanga, Meherpur, Thakurgaon, Kurigram, Panchagar,
and Dinajpur.
Victims' accusations against the BSF range from verbal abuse to
harassment, shooting, abductions, arrests, and torture to killings of
adults, women and children.
Full of actual accounts from victims and relatives of those killed and
tortured, the report said that "according to Odhikar, from 2000 till
September 2010, over 930 Bangladeshi nationals were killed in the
border area by the Indian BSF". According to the BSF, 164 Indian
nationals and 347 Bangladeshi nationals have been killed through BSF
shootings since 2006. The detail focuses on the fact that the BSF acts
aggressively toward border residents on the Indian side of the border
as well.
The border areas of Bangladesh and India are heavily populated, with
most Bangladeshi and Indian nationals extremely poor. Large numbers of
farmers in these areas have lost their farms and other means of
livelihood due to river erosion, and are driven towards cattle
rustling.
Around 20,000-25,000 animals enter Bangladesh through West Bengal
daily. Although cross-border cattle trade is illegal in India, the
sale of Indian livestock in Bangladesh are legal and taxable, and
Border Guard Bangladesh personnel often facilitate cattle traders. The
well-organized traders, with links to both BGB and BSF personnel, are
hardly in the line of fire of the guards. Even so, the traders employ
villagers to ferry cattle from the Indian side to the Bangladesh
territory, often at night.
Bangladeshi nationals who venture into India to smuggle cattle into
Bangladesh for payments of between 500 and 1,000 takas ($7 to $15) per
trip, tend to be those spotted by BSF personnel, who open fire without
warning.
Such was the case of Nazrul Islam, a 40-year-old laborer from Baribaka
village, Meherpur district, who entered India on January 21 and later
sought to return over the fence while fellow members of a rustling
gang herded the cattle elsewhere. After hearing shots at around 5am on
January 22, his cousin, Mohammad Ershad, found Nazrul's body caught in
the barbed wire of the border fence a few hours later. Two bullets had
hit Nazrul in the abdomen while he was caught on the fence.
The report pointed out that usually BSF shoots at rustlers who fail to
pay the right bribe.
Smuggling of medicines such as Phensedyl, an addictive cough syrup
that is banned in Bangladesh as it contains the narcotic codeine, and
rice occurs at the border. In the other direction, women from
Bangladesh are trafficked to India to be sold off to brothels there or
in other countries. Some will work illegally as domestic helpers in
India.
Over and above these, millions of Bangladeshis live and work in India
and often Bangladeshi nationals visiting relatives in India fall prey
to BSF bullets when trying to cross back into Bangladesh.
The joint working group dealing with border issues deals with concerns
such as the nearly 100 Phensedyl factories on the Indian side of the
border fence, weapons, explosives, drugs smuggling from India, while
New Delhi is worried about human trafficking into India, the
unauthorized influx of Bangladeshi economic migrants; smuggling of
fake currency, narcotics and cattle.
Bangladesh and India are also concerned about the number of criminals
hiding in both the countries. During a meeting in Dhaka on September
28, 2010, the BGB handed over a list of 63 Bangladeshi criminals
hiding in India, while the BSF handed over a list of 79 Indian
criminals said to be hiding in Bangladesh.
On January 24, 2010, 17-year-old Shyamol Karmokar of Bishroshiya
village in Chapainababganj district, Bangladesh, left his house
without telling anyone that he was going to visit his aunt in Malda,
India. As he couldn't afford a passport, he crossed the border
illegally. While trying to cross back two days later, he was spotted
by the BSF and was shot without warning. Naren Karmokar, Shyamol's
father, found his son's dead body on January 29 with bullet wounds on
his abdomen, chest and neck.
In March 2010, the then Bangladesh border force chief Major General
Mainul Islam, while acknowledging that there was a history of "people
and cattle trafficking during darkness", said of the border killings,
"We should not be worried about such incidents. ... We have discussed
the matter and will ensure that no innocent people will be killed."
The Indian side displays a similar lack of concern. Last September
during an official visit to Bangladesh, the director general of the
BSF, Raman Srivastava, responded to Bandgladesh's complaints that his
force was killing "innocent, unarmed" Bangladeshi civilians by saying:
"We fire at criminals who violate the border norms. The deaths have
occurred in Indian territory and mostly during the night, so how can
they be innocent?"
While the comments portray the Indian and Bangladesh border guards
notion that criminals can be shot if they are engaged in illegal
activities, it does not address the harassment, torture and killings
of Bangladeshi civilians who stray into Indian territory or even
inside the Bangladesh border.
To reduce crimes and to prevent militancy spreading across the border,
India in 1980 started constructing a fence along more than 3,000
kilometers of its border. The barrier, however, is built a few
kilometers inside Indian territory, and Bangladeshi citizens can often
be fatally confused as they stray into India across the often unclear
actual demarcation line.
On January 25, laborer Motiar Rahman of Kadamtala village, in Jessore,
Bangladesh, strayed into Indian territory at around 7:15am as there
were no clear markers. The report mentioned his account: "After about
15 minutes, two BSF soldiers captured me. They blindfolded me and took
me to the BSF camp at Angrail. ... At that time, I thought that the
BSF men were going to kill me. After reaching the camp, they took off
the blindfold and tied me to a tree which was just beside the camp.
They left me there until 11pm ... "
Motiar was given food after this. But as soon as he finished eating,
the BSF began to torture him. "I was beaten severely with a bamboo
stick, on my back and feet by the same soldier who brought me the
food. I was kicked several times and as a result started bleeding from
my penis. At this point, another BSF soldier started beating me on my
head with a bamboo stick. This torture went on for at least 45
minutes. The BSF men jumped onto my chest, and kicked me on my head
and face with their boots. I think I collapsed and became unconscious
... "
Motiar was again tortured the next day before being handed over to the
Bangladesh border guards on January 27.
Dalem Chandra Barman, chairman of peace and conflict studies
department at Dhaka University, told Asia Times Online, "The fence has
divided families across the border thus increasing atrocities."
Indiscriminate killings by the BSF also occur within Bangladesh
territory. On March 13, 2009, following an argument with a boy fishing
in the Dohalkhari lake in Bangladesh, a BSF trooper opened fire. Two
teenagers who were grazing their cattle were hit by the bullets. Abdur
Rakib, 13, was shot in the chest and died instantly; 15-year-old Omar
Faruk was injured. Rakib's body was carried away by BSF personnel in a
van and handed over following an autopsy in India.
On March 14, a meeting was held between the border guards of both
sides, when the BSF "tried to insist that the victims were illegal
cattle traders". After Bangladesh guards presented witness accounts
countering the Indian version of events, the BSF apologized and
promised that the soldier responsible would be punished. However,
there is no information of any action taken.
Several reports of Indian security forces shooting poor, unarmed
villagers along its 4,023-kilometer border with Bangladesh have drawn
international criticism, but the Bangladesh Border Guard (BGB) - which
rose up in an infamous 2009 mutiny that killed 57 officers - also
faces allegations of "extrajudicial" killings.
However, while the killings by the BGB are well-documented, the same
cannot be said for the Indian Border Security Force (BSF) killings. A
look into the BSF's history explains why and how.
India established the BSF, a 220,000-personnel strong force, on
December 1, 1965, to protect its land border during peace time and to
prevent transnational crimes. Operating under the administrative
control of the Ministry of Home Affairs, it is responsible for
preventing smuggling, unauthorized entry and exit from India as well
as "combating the secessionist militant campaign in the state of Jammu
and Kashmir".
As documented in "Trigger-Happy", an 81-page Human Rights Watch (HRW)
report on the border situation, the BSF authorities justify any
killings by terming the person killed a suspected smuggler who was
trying evade arrest. The second most used excuse by the BSF was that
"its personnel had to fire in self-defense".
Upon investigation, it was usually found that either the alleged
criminals were unarmed or armed with sickles, sticks and knives, or
that in shooting these victims border guards had used "excessive
force". Moreover, in most cases, the victims were found "shot in the
back", suggesting they had been fleeing.
In other cases, scratches, bruises and marks of beating were found on
the bodies of the victims. In most cases, victims were caught by the
BSF, tortured and finally killed before handing over the body to BGB
personnel. In some cases, the BSF claimed that Bangladeshi nationals
killed were "militant suspects" - without being specific on the nature
of the militants' goals. These claims remain unproven.
A former BSF official interviewed for the Human Rights Watch report
admitted that about a decade ago orders were handed down to shoot at
suspected smugglers at the Bangladesh border. The official said the
assumption underlying the policy was that it would deter such illegal
activities.
BSF personnel are also not accountable to the local administration,
the police, or to human-rights institutions. The Indian police, in
fact, often refuse to register complaints against the BSF because,
under India's Border Security Force Act, BSF personnel cannot be
prosecuted in civilian courts without approval from the federal home
ministry - permission that is seldom granted.
This legally sanctioned impunity is even included in a new bill to
prohibit torture under consideration in the Indian parliament. The
bill, as presently drafted, will require approval from the central or
a state government for a court to have jurisdiction over an offense
committed by a public servant.
Also the HRW report stated, "[A]uthorities say that BSF personnel are
prosecuted by internal courts, where the hearings and verdicts are not
public. Although the BSF claims that these courts are routinely used
to prosecute those that commit crimes or violate the Border Security
Force Act, there are no publicly known cases in which a BSF member was
convicted of a crime for a human-rights abuse at the India-Bangladesh
border."
Time and again, the Indian government claimed that the National Human
Rights Commission (NHRC) acts as the watchdog for such incidents.
However, even the commission cannot independently investigate
allegations against federal forces, including the BSF.
Besides mentioning the BSF atrocities, the HRW report carries accounts
of human-rights violations by the BGB (or by the BDR as the force was
before March 2010). Most damningly, it said the BDR, "often fails to
defend the rights of Bangladeshi citizens".
The HRW report does mention the 27-year-old villager Rashidul Islam of
Lalmonirhaat, who was picked up by the BGB and beaten to death at a
river bank. His body was thrown into the river. Rashidul's father
later assumed that this was due to an altercation between Rashidul and
BGB personnel regarding the amount of bribes while smuggling cattle
into Bangladesh. Rashidul was a Bangladeshi national, who was killed
within the Bangladesh territory.
As BGB personnel get a cut from smugglers, they are not usually
inclined to shoot at Indian smugglers or cattle rustlers. It is
estimated that goods worth around 3.5 billion Indian rupees (US$77.5
million) are smuggled into India each year. That BGB may get at least
10% from this as their cut goes some way to explaining that there have
been no reported incidents of BGB shooting Indian nationals in 2009
and 2010.
After the HRW report was released, the Director General of Border
Guard Bangladesh, Major General Rafiqul Islam, was quoted as saying by
Bangladeshi newspaper New Age: "Our [Bangladesh's] weak point is that
the killings take place on Indian territory. We find the killing of
innocent people unacceptable and we have repeatedly brought up this
issue with the Indian authorities, as have our home minister, foreign
minister as well as the prime minister. The number of killings has
started to come down over the last few months."
Adilur Rahman Khan, secretary of the Bangladeshi rights organization
Odhikar and an advocate of the Supreme Court of Bangladesh, rejects
this view. "Nothing of the sort has happened. That India is aggressive
towards Bangladesh is portrayed through the construction of the border
fence by India and the persistent killings and torture of Bangladeshi
nationals at the hands of BSF despite repeated requests from
Bangladesh government," he said.
National Human Rights Commission chairman Mizanur said, "We have
raised the gross human-rights violations issue with Justice K G
Balakrishnan, chairman of the Indian Human Rights Commission, during
his recent trip to Dhaka. He has assured [he will] extend utmost
pressure on the Indian government to stop the disproportionate force
used upon unarmed citizens. However, the steps were probably not
enough to curb the killings significantly."
Dhaka University's Barman said, "Discussions between the two sides and
'border haat' [a bilateral agreement to allowing makeshift bazaars at
the common border] can encourage differences to fade away."
"Why would India take Bangladesh seriously when the latter is
subservient to the former? Moreover, how can negotiations work between
a killer and his victim? Who will mediate such a negotiation?" asked
Khan while adding that India has little intention of doing otherwise
in the future.
He pointed out that the "muscle-flexing" tendency of India has
continued ever since its involvement in the liberation war of
Bangladesh in 1971. The disputes between the two nations have
continued near the border since then, over a number of areas such as
Boraibari, Daikhata-Dumabari, Chitmahal, Padua, Khagrachhari,
Lathitila, Muhurichar and others.
"So Bangladeshi nationals were being shot in these areas by the BSF
much before 2000. The number of unreported deaths of Bangladeshi
nationals is much more than just 930 from 2000; this number is three
or four times more if listed from 1971," he said.
"In order to press home the notion that Bangladesh should be taken
seriously, the Bangladeshi government should strengthen its foreign
policy and its defense forces by increasing its reserve forces," said
Khan.
Syed Tashfin Chowdhury is a senior staff writer at New Age in Dhaka.
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/MB10Df02.html
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