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FM expresses concern over border killing rise


Published : 02 Jan 2020 08:51 PM | Updated : 06 Sep 2020 06:26 PM

A sharp rise in border killing was a matter of concern for the government, foreign minister AK Abdul Momen said on Wednesday. Thirty-seven Bangladeshis were killed in border shootings in a sharp rise compared to the previous year, he told journalists at the foreign ministry, adding that the matter was discussed at the co-ordination conference between Border Guard Bangladesh and Border Security Force of India in New Delhi in last week. “We want that no lethal weapon would be used and killings along the border would come to zero,” he said.

In 2019, forty-three Bangladeshis were killed by BSF in bordering areas and 37 of them were shot dead, according to rights group Ain o Salish Kendra senior coordinator Abu Ahmed Faijul Kabir. Six Bangladesh citizens were tortured to death in separate incidents in India, he said. The last Bangladeshi was killed along the border on December 25, only a day before the BGB and BSF chiefs were set to attend a coordination conference in the Indian capital.

Fourteen Bangladeshi were shot dead by Indians in 2018, according to ASK. The Indian side reportedly claimed in the meeting with the BGB in New Delhi that non-lethal weapon policy ‘is strictly followed by BSF personal on the border’ and ‘BSF does not discriminate between criminals based on nationality’.

Successive Indian prime ministers, including Manmohan Singh and Narendra Modi, were pledge-bound to their Bangladesh counterpart Sheikh Hasina, in all their meetings since 2011, to bring down border killing to zero and introduce non-lethal weapons along the border. The pledges, however, are yet to be fulfilled.