Border killings, drug smuggling to dominate BGB-BSF talks
Indian Border Security Force (BSF) Director General (DG) Rakesh Asthana found its way to Dhaka Wednesday to become listed on a four-day time border conference between Bangladeshi and Indian border guards that will formally start Thursday at the Border Safeguard Bangladesh (BGB) headquarters on the capital.
"A six-member BSF delegation led by its DG Rakesh Asthana found its way to city by a good BGB helicopter entering Bangladesh through Akhaura Integrated Verify Post (ICP) to join the (rescheduled) BGB-BSF four-day time DG level boarder conference (from September 16 to 19)," said a good BGB press release in Dhaka Wednesday afternoon, reports BSS.
The formal meeting will start at 10:45am about September 17 (Thursday) at the conference room in the BGB Headquarters in the town, before said another BGB news release on Tuesday.
According to the discharge, BGB Director General (DG) Key General Md Shafeenul Islam might lead a 13-member Bangladesh delegation even while his BSF counterpart Rakesh Asthana can lead the six-member delegation in the conference.
The conference will conclude with the signing of a Joint Record of Discussions (JRD) on September 19.
The BGB-BSF DG Level Talks (DGLTs) were scheduled for September 13-18, but it was postponed on September 13 as the BSF delegation could not reach Dhaka on your day because of a technical glitch within their aircraft.
Regarding to officials, the issue of killings in the border is likely to dominate largely the talks among Bangladeshi and Indian border guards while chiefs of the two paramilitary forces place to meet up in the four-day meeting.
“Border killing is an important issue for all of us,” a BGB official told BSS on September 11, adding that until August this season, 33 Bangladeshis were killed along Bangladesh-India frontiers.
Speaking with BSS, BGB’s operations director Lieutenant Colonel Fayzur Rahman explained Bangladesh always laid huge importance to violence on the borders as following any incident of eliminating on borders “we start talks at all levels”.
He said protests are lodged in flag meetings with Boarder Reliability Force (BSF) in the camp level on the frontiers, as the issue is raised up to the foreign ministry for diplomatic initiatives to stop the phenomenon.
According to rights group Ain O Salish Kendra (ASK), 15 people had been killed along the Bangladesh-India border in 2018, the quantity rose to 43 this past year. In the primary seven months of this year, 29 persons were killed.
The BGB businesses director said cross boarder smuggling particularly drug smuggling, construction of unique structures like barbed wire fencing and various other installations were various other issues to be reviewed in the meeting.
He, on the other hand, described the meeting due to a good routine one when both sides would discuss aswell the ways to improve relations between the two border forces, together with other issues of mutual interest.
Reports from New Delhi suggest, cattle smuggling, fake currency organization and human trafficking will tend to be the major issues of the BSF area in the talks.
The DG-level talks between BGB and BSF was first held in 1975, as the talks are usually held twice a year, once in Dhaka as soon as in Delhi for operations of porous 4,096 km long frontiers.
The BGB-BSF DGLT is defined to be held days ahead of planned foreign minister level Joint Consultative Commission (JCC) meeting using virtual media to be hosted by Dhaka in the future this month.
