AMN

In Bangladesh, two people were killed and a child was injured on Monday afternoon as a mortar shell from across Myanmar border exploded at Ghumdhum in Bandarban district. Bandarban Deputy Commissioner (DC) Shah Mujahid Uddin told media persons that two people died when a mortar shell from Myanmar landed on a house near international border and exploded around 2:30pm.

Bullets and mortar shells have been fired into Bangladesh over the last two days as gun battle between Myanmar troops and their armed group called Arakan Army has escalated in Rakhine state of Myanmar, reports Bangladesh Sangbad Sansthan (BSS).

Meanwhile, 95 soldiers of Myanmar’s paramilitary Border Guard Police (BGP) have taken refuge in Bangladesh fleeing their posts amid reports of heavy gunfights between the Junta troops and the rebels in the junta-run country. Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB) Public Relations Officer Md Shariful Islam confirmed media that a total of 95 BGP personnel took shelter in Bangladesh until Monday morning and BGB has disarmed them and kept them in its custody.

While talking with media, Bangladesh Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal today said in Dhaka that Myanmar border police entered into Bangladesh territory with weapons for self-defense. Recalling Bangladesh’s Liberation War in 1971, he said millions of Bangladeshi people went to India and took shelter there. So the border police of Myanmar entered into Bangladesh for shelter not for war.

However, Bangladesh Foreign Minister Dr Hasan Mahmud today said Myanmar government has approached to the Bangladesh mission in Myanmar for taking back its Border Guard Police (BGP) members who fled to Cox’s Bazar due to heavy gunfights in Rakhine state.

Bangladesh’s border with Myanmar stretches 271.0 kilometres from the tri-point with India in the north, to the Bay of Bengal in the south.