Bangladesh border officials have cautioned their Indian counterparts for strict use of non-lethal weapons to reduce border killings signifcantly.
The senior border guard officials of Bangladesh and India began their four-day long regional border talks at Tamabil, Sylhet on Monday to review border management and other crucial issues of terrorism and border crimes, Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB) Sector Commander Lt. Col Jamal Mahmud Siddique told The Daily Observer Monday.
Bangladesh delegation, comprising 20-members, was led by BGB's Additional Director General (north-eastern region) Brigadier General Mohammad Latiful Haider, while a 22-member Indian team was led by Inspector General Sudhesh Kumar, Indian Border Security Forces (BSF) of Meghalaya.
Inspector General's of three frontiers of BSF in northeast India - Tripura, Meghalaya, Mizoram-Cachar attended the border management meeting.
BGB officials raised the border killings issue and reminded the Indian border force chief Subhash Joshi's commitment to reduce causalities on the border during the recent Director General (DG) level talks in Dhaka. At the meeting, the two neighbouring countries took stock of the progress and reviewed the needs for implementation of the decisions agreed at the biannual bilateral border talks in both the capitals of Bangladesh and India, said Sylhet Sector Commander. The pressing agenda of discussion was focused on gun running and drug trade, cross-border terrorism, circulation of fake currency notes and border crimes, a BGB official said.
Bangladesh sought rationale behind erection of barbed wire fences and installation of floodlights all along the 4,096-km India-Bangladesh border in West Bengal, Tripura, Assam, Meghalaya and Mizoram. He said the border guards of two neighbours also discussed deployment of coordinated joint patrols along the border, especially in the night time. Four Indian north-eastern states of Tripura, Meghalaya, Mizoram and Assam share 1,880 km porous border with Bangladesh.
Bangladesh and India share a 4,096-kilometre long porous international border, the fifth-longest land border in the world, including 262 km in Assam, 856 km in Tripura, 18 km in Mizoram, 443 km in Meghalaya, and 2,217 km in West Bengal, according to BGB officials.