THE request that the home minister, Sahara Khatun, made to the visiting chief of the Border Security Force of India, Raman Srivastava, on Thursday, 'to take measures so that killing of innocent Bangladeshi civilians in BSF firing along the borders does not take place in any way', and the assurance given by the latter in this regard, albeit welcome, are hardly reassuring. After all, since the Awami League-led government assumed office in January 2009, Dhaka has made similar requests several times and Delhi, in response, assured it of redress but the request-assurance exercises have hardly had any tangible impact on the ground and the BSF has continued on its murderous ways. According to a report front-paged in New Age on Friday, quoting statistics of the human rights organisation Odhikar, at least 49 Bangladeshis were shot dead by the BSF in the past nine months.
Similarly, the disclosure made by the Bangladesh home secretary that the 'Indian government is considering a proposal made earlier for replacing the lethal weapons or bullets used by the border guards with arms that do not cause death' is unlikely to allay the fears of the people at large in general and those living in border areas in particular. New Delhi, after all, seems to have an uncanny habit of letting dust gather on proposals that seek to contain its trigger-happy border guards. Here it is pertinent to recall that, in March this year, the Indian home secretary, during his inaugural lecture at the India-Bangladesh Security Conference in New Delhi, claimed that his government was 'considering' a proposal for 'unilateral no firing on the border for a year.' (Notably, the killing on the border itself has been unilateral.) New Delhi has since neither instituted the 'unilateral no firing' nor talked about it, as if the proposal simply vanished in thin air.
In fact, thus far, regardless of the AL-led government's claim of 'turning a new chapter' in Bangladesh-India relations with the visit of the prime minister, Sheikh Hasina, to New Delhi in January this year, the Indian government has hardly shown its willingness to address the border problems that it has created for Bangladesh over the years, especially in terms of border demarcation and killing by BSF soldiers and their henchmen. On the contrary, time and again, the BSF—and, by implication, New Delhi—has rather appeared inclined to instigate trouble in border areas. On more occasions than one in the past, the BSF orchestrated intrusion of Indian nationals into Bangladesh territory, either for cultivation or fishing, and whenever Bangladesh's border guards tried to stop the intruders and/or protested against such incursions, it opened fire.
As we have commented in these columns many times before, New Delhi has been able to get away with highhandedness in its dealings with Bangladesh because of the AL-led government's apparent reluctance and/or inability to assert itself. In fact, the incumbents have thus far shown a curious tendency to buy into New Delhi's one hollow assurance after another. Hopefully, this time around, the home minister's request to the BSF chief will be followed up at the top political level of the two countries, with Dhaka standing firm on its call for effective measures from New Delhi to put an end to the BSF killing spree. Meanwhile, Dhaka needs also to reach out to the international community so that it weighs heavily on the Indian government to sincerely and effectively redress the menace that the BSF killing spree has become.
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