BSF to train BGB on border management
Border Guard Bangladesh has agreed to receive border management training from Indian Border Security Force, BGB chief Maj Gen Aziz Ahmed said yesterday.
"The BSF has offered a wide range of trainings on border management for BGB personnel. We have initially agreed on the training for our senior and junior level officers on bomb disposal and handling of dog squads," he said.
Maj Gen Aziz made the comments at a press briefing at his office in the capital on the outcome of a five-day DG-level conference between BGB and BSF that concluded in New Delhi on Monday.
"We hope to send our officers for training to India before the next DG-level meeting scheduled for December in Dhaka," he said.
Border killing and drug trafficking topped Bangladesh's agenda during the meet, Maj Gen Aziz said, adding that his counterpart had handed over a list of 71 alleged hideouts of Indian insurgent groups in the hill tracts of Bangladesh.
"Allegation of such hideouts in Bangladesh is not new and we could not trace any such hideouts," he said. More than one third of the total BGB strength has been deployed in Chittagong hill tract area so it was quite impossible for such elements to be there, he claimed.
BGB handed over a list of makeshift Phensidyl factories within Indian territory along the border and requested BSF to dismantle them. Maj Gen Aziz said BGB also sought BSF cooperation in containing smuggling of firearms and women and children.
India has recently enacted a law under which Phensidyl traffickers will be tried, he said.
Both BGB and BSF agreed to make a list of areas along the border where smuggling and trafficking happen the most. The list would be updated every year.
Regarding border killings, Maj Gen Aziz said, "We are yet to bring down border killings to zero though BSF repeatedly claims that they [BSF] have introduced the use of non-lethal weapons."
On the issue of kidnapping of Bangladeshi nationals by Indians, he said such kidnappings usually take place due to land related issues and cattle trafficking in border areas.
On the much-talked-about Bangladeshi teenage girl Felani Khatun's killing in 2011 by BSF, Maj Gen Aziz said BSF assured him of quick conclusion of the ongoing trial. BSF has already sent a letter for producing Felani's father and maternal uncle before a court to testify in the case again, he said.
A fresh trial was ordered in the Felani case after an accused BSF personnel -- who shot Felani dead while crossing the border from India into Bangladesh -- was acquitted.
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