Bangladesh Defence

Dhaka(SANA)Border officials from India and Bangladesh agree to start the joint border management after October 31 to maintain peace along the common border.
The top-level talks between the Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB) and the Indian Border Security Force (BSF) conclude in Dhaka with the latter again promising to reduce the incidence of border killings to zero level, report agencies.

The two sides also agreed to start the joint border management after October 31 to maintain peace along the common border.

The six-day meeting began Sunday at the BGB headquarters in city’s Peelkhana. BGB director general Major General Anwar Hussain led the 23-member Bangladesh delegation while a 21-member BSF delegation was led by BSF director general SH Raman Srivastava.

At a joint press briefing at the BGB headquarters, BSF chief Srivastava reassured that their aim was to bring down the incidence of the border killings to zero level.

The two sides agreed to launch joint border management after October 31 in line with an agreement signed during Indian Home Minister P Chidambaram’s visit to Dhaka on July 30.

The joint management is aimed at resolving all outstanding border issues including combating cross-border crimes and enhancing quality of border management as well to ensure cross-border security.

During the meeting, the BGB raised Bangladesh’s concern over the cross-border drug smuggling that poses serious threat to the young generation of Bangladesh. The BGB requested its Indian counterpart for effective steps to stop smuggling of drug into Bangladesh.

Besides, the issue of women and children trafficking was also discussed in the meeting and both sides agreed to halt it.

At the end of the meeting, the two sides signed a Joint Record of Discussions (JRD).

At the end of the meeting with his Bangladeshi counterpart in Dhaka, Raman Shrivastava told the media, “We have no intention of killing,” and said “it has come down significantly”.

Citing statistics, he said the number of killings was 55 in 2009 but in 2011, the number has come down to seven so far.

Anwar said there were some problems when Tin Bigha corridor was opened for 24 hours, but “things are now okay”.

Raman said Indian has handed over a list of criminals and insurgents and fake currency traffickers to Bangladesh and urged action against them.

“I must appreciate Bangladesh for taking action in this regard,” he said.

He said fake currency is not made in Bangladesh but it is used as transit route to reach India.

Anwar said last year BSF had handed over some lists but subsequent operations did not yield much result.

“We will hunt down the criminals,” he said.

South Asian News Agency | India, BD to manage border jointly from Nov