Indo-Bangla Home Secys Meet: Border killings prominent on agenda

Bangladesh-India home secretary-level meeting will be held in Dhaka on February 27, a month before Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's planned visit to Dhaka on March 26-27.

Bangladesh Home Secretary Mostafa Kamal Uddin and his Indian counterpart Ajay Kumar Bhalla will lead the respective countries in the meeting.

"It is a regular meeting. Our regular issues will be discussed in it," an official concerned told this correspondent yesterday.

He said border killing is among other issues that would be highlighted.

Border killing has been a thorny issue between the two countries, and Bangladesh on various occasions raised it, urging for zero deaths on the border.

The Indian side says not only Bangladeshis, almost a similar number of Indians are also killed on the border. Even, members of Indian Border Security Force (BSF) were also killed and injured on the border.

They said people from both the sides are involved in criminal activities on the border. Criminal gangs also sometimes shoot the border security forces, leading to casualties.

Indian High Commissioner Vikram Doraiswami recently told this correspondent that joint border management, augmenting economic activities and border awareness can bring the border killing to zero level.

"We will hold a preparatory meeting on Monday and then can fix the agenda," a Bangladesh official said.

This is a follow-up of the last home secretary-level meeting held in Delhi, he added.

According to foreign ministry officials, in the run-up to the summit between Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and her Indian counterpart Narendra Modi, at least three secretary-level and one minister-level meetings will be held.

Those include water, home and commerce secretary-level meetings.

Indian External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar will also be visiting Dhaka to meet his Bangladesh counterpart AK Abdul Momen on March 4 for preparation of the PM-level summit on March 27.

The two countries have taken up a number of initiatives to celebrate the 50th year of anniversary of Bangladesh's independence and also the diplomatic relations between the two countries this year.