AMN/ WEB DESK
High Commissioner of India to Bangladesh Vikram Doraiswami has said that the two countries need to make much more efforts to reduce the pressure for illicit economic activities–in particular, smuggling of cattle and drugs–and the violence that such activities generate
High Commissioner said that more economic opportunities need to be provided to people on both sides of the border including through facilitation of legal trade, to reduce the incentive for illicit economic activity that is most often the reason for violent incidents on the Indian side of the border.
In an interview to a leading Bangladeshi newspaper, High Commissioner Doraiswami said that the number of civilian casualties of citizens belonging to either side of the border in such incidents, that he described as deeply distressing and tragic, is more or less the same. Between 2010-19 124 Bangladeshi citizens were killed in BSF firing while 90 Indians were also killed during the same period. He underlined that since all these incidents take place at the darkest hours of the night, and with large groups typically of young men from both sides of the border, force is only used in self-defence and it is only in response to specific targeted attacks on the BSF patrols.
The High Commissioner underlined that at the same time, more than 1000 BSF personnel were injured in attacks with 17 of them being killed in border incidents during this period. He said these figures underline that contrary to public impression that it is unarmed people who are crossing the border either by accident or without papers, almost all of the incidents of such firing by BSF are responses in self-defence, and that BSF guards sustain injuries at a very high rate only because of their effort to use force as a last resort.
The High Commissioner denied that unarmed ordinary people are killed in these incidents on the border. He said that the border guards of both the countries, BSF and Border Guards Bangladesh (BGB) make consistent efforts to return the ordinary people apprehended for crossing the border illegally to their respective countries. He pointed out that between January and October 2021, 460 Bangladeshi nationals were handed over to the BGB and 124 Bangladeshi nationals were permitted to return without processing as they had inadvertently transgressed the border. This shows that illegal crossing is not being handled with violence, said the High Commissioner.
In short, the two countries need to make much more efforts to reduce the pressure for illicit economic activities–in particular, smuggling of cattle and drugs–and the violence that such activities generate, the High Commissioner said.