Indians tilled cropland inside Bangladesh at Shreepur near the Jaintapur border in Sylhet for the second consecutive day on Saturday amid protests by the Bangladesh Rifles.
A teenaged Bangladeshi boy, who cannot speak, was, meanwhile, injured as an Indian in the afternoon fired at him at Dibir Haor in the Jaintapur border.he injured was Suman, 15, a resident of Dibir Haor at Jaintapur in the district.Local people said an Indian Khasia tribesman fired at Suman about 5:30pm when he went to look for his cow at Kendribil. As he groaned, villagers reached the place and rescued him.The Jaintapur BDR outpost in-charge in the evening said the injured boy had been sent to Sylhet Osmani Medical College Hospital.
Shreepur villagers also vandalised the Kathalbari checkpoint under the BDR outpost at the place in the afternoon as the Bangladesh border guards did not allow them to put up resistance against the Indians who were tilling cropland 100 to 150 metres inside the Bangladesh territory, sources said.
The 21 Rifles Battalion second-in-command, Major Abdulla Al-Mamun, told New Age in the afternoon the villagers had rallied against the Bangaldesh border guards as they did not fire gunshots to stop the Indians or allow the local people to put up resistance.'We are observing the situation and trying to avoid any incident that could create unrest in the border,' he said, adding that the Bangladesh Rifles authorities had been informed of the situation.
Local sources said two groups of Indian Khasia tribesmen, each of about 15, trespassed into Bangladesh through Mianrtila and Kathalbari near the Shreepur BDR outpost between 9:30am and 10:30am and started tilling cropland ignoring BDR protests.'We warned the Indians by blowing whistles and hanging red flags for not till the land inside Bangladesh and to get back to their country but they did not heed our requests and continued tilling in two places till noon,' a Shreepur BDR outpost solider said.Local sources said some 50 Indians came again to Kathalbari about 1:30pm and resumed tilling the cropland.
At least 250 villagers of Asampara, Shreepur, Minartila and Kathalbari along the Shreepur border gathered at Kathalbari about 3:00pm and tried to stop the Indians from tilling land inside Bangladesh.But the Bangladesh border guards of the Kathalbari checkpoint stopped the villagers, villagers said.
After BDR obstruction, the villagers vandalised the Kathalbari BDR checkpoint, the sources said.The 21 Rifles Battalion's commandant officer Khandakar Zahirul Alam in the afternoon told New Age the BDR soldiers had stopped the villagers from picking up any quarrel with the Indians as they were armed. 'If unarmed Bangladeshis had picked up a quarrel with the Indians, this could have resulted in casualties as the Indians had firearms,' the BDR official said. Zahirul said he had talked with his Indian counterpart, Shekhar Gupta, commandant officer of the BSF 1, over telephone at noon but he had not made any positive response to the request for asking the Indians to stop tilling inside Bangladesh. 'India's Border Security Force official said they had no right to stop his countrymen from tilling as they were tilling their own land,' Zahirul said.
Indian tribesmen started tilling cropland inside the Bangladesh territory at the Shreepur border of Jaintapur in Sylhet on Friday morning, 17 hours after a high-level flag meeting between the border guards of both the countries where they agreed to keep peace in the border.
Earlier on June 19, two Bangladeshis — Nasir Uddin, 30, and Lilu Miah, 28 — were injured as an Indian fired into the Bisnakandi stone quarry along the Gowainghat border in the district.On June 15, the BSF fired into the BDR when the Bangladesh border guards tried to stop Indians from tilling cropland, 300 to 400 metres inside Bangladesh near the Shreepur BDR outpost.
The BDR soldiers also fired back in several points along the Jaintapur and the Gowainghat border. At least a Bangladeshi was injured in BSF firing. High BDR and BSF officials sat at a flag meeting at the BSF's Dauki camp at Tamabil border on Thursday afternoon and the officials of border guards of both the countries agreed to continue with their efforts to keep peace in the border, BDR sources said.
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