BGB, coast guards on alert to check infiltration

The Border Guard Bangladesh and the Bangladesh Coast Guard are on alert along the border with Myanmar so that people from Myanmar cannot enter Bangladesh, Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan said yesterday. 

"A sense of unease is prevailing along the border with Myanmar,” the home boss said while talking to journalists after a meeting of the national committee on resisting smuggling.

The minister came up with the remark when hundreds of Rohingya people are trying to flee a military crackdown by crossing the Myanmar border with Bangladesh.

On Saturday, the coast guards prevented 125 Rohingyas, including women and children, from entering Bangladesh through the Naf river as the group tried to escape violence in Myanmar.

Yesterday's meeting also decided to increase monitoring along the borders across the country to resist smuggling from the neighbouring countries.

"We will also set up scanning machines at all check posts along the borders to stop all sorts of arms smuggling,” the minister said.

Replying to a query, the minister said that law enforcers between January and June arrested 9,862 people and seized contraband items worth Tk 1,261 crore in 308,600 raids across the country.