From: Shimul Chaudhury honestdebater@yahoo.ca
New Age, Dhaka, Sunday, January 23, 2011 http://newagebd.com/newspaper1/letters/6049.html Border killings and BSF promisesShimul Chaudhury IN VIEW of the murders committed regularly by the Border Security Force of India in the border region, a two-day joint working group meeting was held between the home secretaries of Bangladesh and India at Hotel Sheraton in Dhaka on January 18-19. In the past, dozens of such meetings were held on occasions when India also felt that the BSF brutality was too much. On January 19, in a press conference at the end of the meeting, the 10-member Indian delegation regretted the killing of 15-year-old Felani by the BSF on January 7 and refused to comment on several other recent killings. However, it was reported that in the meeting India assured Bangladesh that it would stop killings and tortures of Bangladeshis in the border region. Typical of Indian promises, this too was breached on January 21, when the BSF tortured and left unconscious two Bangladeshi men in the Satkhira border area and both the men are now fighting for life in Satkhira General Hospital. This has been the case with all the previous Indian promises of stopping border killings and tortures. Let me provide a partial account of such promises in the recent past. On March 19, 2010, Indian home secretary GK Pillai said his country would follow a policy of 'unilateral no firing on the border for a year,' which did not see even an iota of implementation. Since then, dozens of Bangladeshis have been killed and tortured by the BSF. On April 3, 2010, in a flag meeting between the two countries in Satkhira, the BSF regretted killings of Bangladeshis. On March 14, 2010, the BSF personnel and Indian nationals intruded Bangladesh in the Sylhet border region for looting purposes, and in a subsequent meeting between the two countries, the BSF said 'sorry' and promised not to commit such acts of aggression again. A few years ago, in 2008, the BSF intruded Bangladesh territory and killed three civilians, including a minor boy, in Panchagarh on November 16. In a flag meeting on November 17, 2008, as usual, the BSF said 'sorry' and assured that it would not kill Bangladeshis anymore. There have been over a thousand killings of Bangladeshis by the BSF in the last 10 years or so, and there have been many promises from the Indian side of stopping such atrocities. But, unfortunately, all the promises and assurances have proven completely empty. We have seen no decrease in the murders by BSF and no punishment has ever been meted out to the BSF wrongdoers. More unfortunate is the way some prominent Bangladeshi news outlets cover BSF atrocities and Indian hypocrisies. Most BSF killings get only one-column reports with a few lines in these newspapers. If Bangladeshi media does not adequately cover the sufferings of the Bangladeshi people, who will? Conversely and surprisingly, a number of Bangladeshi newspapers highlight Indian promises which the media moguls must know to be false and deceptive. This poses a pertinent question in our mind: who actually runs the majority of the news outlets in Bangladesh? |
__._,_.___
[Disclaimer: ALOCHONA Management is not liable for information contained in this message. The author takes full responsibility.]
To unsubscribe/subscribe, send request to alochona-owner@egroups.com
Change settings via the Web (Yahoo! ID required)
Change settings via email: Switch delivery to Daily Digest | Switch to Fully Featured
Visit Your Group | Yahoo! Groups Terms of Use | Unsubscribe
__,_._,___