Shillong, July 15: The border co-ordination meeting between Inspectors General (IG) BSF Meghalaya, Guwahati, Silchar, Tripura and Region Commanders of Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB) concluded here on Saturday.
The border co-ordination meeting was held at the BSF Meghalaya frontier headquarters here from July 12.
The Indian delegation was led by BSF Tripura Frontier IG, U.C. Sarangi, accompanied by IG Meghalaya, Guwahati & Mizoram and Cachar Frontier, besides sector Deputy Inspectors General under Tripura, Mizoram & Cachar, Guwahati and Meghalaya Frontiers.
The BGB delegation was led by Additional Director General of BGB, Md Zahid Hasan, along with sector commanders of Comilla, Rangamati, Rangpur, Sylhet, Mymensingh, and Khagrachari along with four staff officers of BGB and one representative each from the Ministry Of Home Affairs, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and Land Record & Survey and Joint River Commission.
The points discussed during the meeting mainly focused on common concerns of both the border guarding forces like movement of insurgent/human trafficking, drugs, gold, fake currency, arms smuggling which need greater cooperation, understanding and synergy to make life of border population secure.
From the BSF, they emphasized mainly on the issues such as attacks/assaults on BSF personnel and unarmed Indian civilians and other provocative action by Bangladeshi criminals, and joint efforts to prevent smuggling of fake Indian currency note and illegal migration/ infiltration by Bangladeshi nationals.
The BSF also raised security related issues particularly the presence of Indian insurgents like GNLA, ULFA, HNLC, NDFB, NLFT in Bangladesh territory, trans-border crimes like smuggling of forest produce, cattle smuggling, committed by Bangladesh nationals/criminals inside Indian territory.
The meeting also discussed various confidence building measures.
The BSF provided facts and figures of all trans-border crimes committed by Bangladeshi nationals inside Indian Territory, apprehension of Bangladeshi nationals who illegally entered into Indian Territory, seizure details regarding Narcotic and other contrabands items.
The IG BSF also requested the Region Commander BGB to take effective measures to stop illegal migration of Bangladeshi national, prevention of trans-border crimes and take stringent action against Indian insurgent groups whose camps still exist in Bangladesh.
From the BGB side, the delegation raised the issue related to firing on Bangladesh nationals by Indian nationals, kidnapping/apprehension of Bangladeshi nationals, illegal trespassing by Indian nationals into Bangladesh territory, smuggling of various types of drugs/narcotics including Phensedyl, wine and Yaba from India to Bangladesh.
The BSF told the BGB that BSF troops along with Indian nationals have been exercising maximum restraint and resort to firing as a last option in the self defence only.
It was also mentioned that BSF personnel have now used non-lethal weapons like pump-action guns and stun grenades along the Indo-Bangla border, which has resulted in considerable change in the environment on the border.
Both the border guarding forces agreed to look into each others’ perspective on border problems with an open mind and resolved to increase sharing of actionable intelligence to curb trans-border crimes.
