THE latest intrusion of Indian nationals into Bangladesh territory on Sunday at Jaintapur in Sylhet, seemingly at the behest of the Border Security Force of India, which prompted an exchange of gunshots between the Bangladesh Rifles and the BSF, causing injury to at least 15 Bangladeshi civilians, tends to indicate that the Indian guards may not be in the mood to exercise restraint so as to avoid confrontation or prevent killing of civilians on the border. According to a report front-paged in New Age on Monday, tension also mounted at Pratappur in Gowainghat where the border guards of the two countries faced off after the BSF had crossed the border and took position in the bunkers that they had dug inside Bangladesh territory Thursday night. Although the BSF left the bunkers and went back into India Saturday night after a flag meeting, they again entered Bangladesh and took position in the bunkers Saturday morning. Incidentally, the two incidents of intrusion, by Indian nationals in the first and by the BSF in the second, took place within three days of the conclusion of a director general-level conference between the border guards of the two countries where the BSF agreed to stop intrusion of Indian nationals into Bangladesh territory and exercise restraint to prevent killing of Bangladeshi civilians.
Needless to say, the BSF has consistently defied all agreements and conventions, bilateral and multilateral, and carried on with all kinds of aggressive and intrusive activities. Over the years, the BSF atrocities have reached such proportions that the BDR even recommended, in a report submitted to the government in the first week of January, a dusk-to-dawn ban on movement of Bangladeshi civilians within 150 metres of the zero point inside Bangladesh territory, to prevent loss of lives. In the report, the BDR noted that the BSF 'kept flouting the Joint India-Bangladesh Guideline 1975 and the International Human Rights Convention.' Regrettably, the joint communiqué, released at the end of the Bangladesh prime minister January 10-13 visit to India, painted the BDR and the BSF with the same brush and asked them both to exercise restraint, although the BDR has exercised restraint and the BSF perpetrated excesses all along. The resolution of the just-concluded director general-level conference similarly bracketed the BDR and the BSF with regard to the flare-ups on the border.
In the past one month or so, the BSF has appeared rather hell bent on instigating trouble on the Jaintapur border. There have been several incidents of intrusion of Indian nationals into Bangladesh territory, apparently at the instigation of the BSF, one of which resulted in exchange of more than 1,000 gunshots between the border guards of the two countries. Moreover, the BSF even kidnapped a BDR soldier at gunpoint and detained him for more than 10 hours. Besides, in the first two months of the calendar year, at least 17 Bangladeshis have been killed by the BSF.
The Awami League-led government has consistently trumpeted the prime minister's recent visit to India as breakthrough in the relations between the two countries and that it has been successful to persuade its Indian counterpart to resolve the border disputes. However, the ground reality tends to indicate otherwise. It is time, therefore, that the government came out with an unequivocal statement on the BSF atrocities on the border and how it plans to redress the issue. After all, the BSF actions are nothing short of attack against Bangladesh's territorial sovereignty.
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