Border guards meet delayed as BSF plane has hiccups
The biannual director general-level talks between Border Guard Bangladesh and Indian Border Security Force, scheduled to start yesterday, was postponed as the BSF delegation failed to reach Dhaka.
"The BSF delegation could not fly to Dhaka today at the final stage due to technical glitches in their own aircraft," a BGB press release said yesterday.
The BSF team was supposed to travel on their own aircraft due to the suspension of Dhaka-Kolkata/ Dhaka-Delhi flights till September 30. The meeting was supposed to end on September 18.
The revised schedule of director general-level talks (DGLT) has not yet been confirmed, added the press release.
BGB DG Maj Gen Md Shafeenul Islam was supposed to lead the Bangladesh side while newly-appointed DG of BSF Rakesh Asthana was supposed to lead his country at the meeting at BGB's Pilkhana headquarters in Dhaka.
The issue of killings along the Indo-Bangla border was likely to dominate the talks between the two border forces.
Until August this year, 33 Bangladeshis were killed along the Bangladesh-India frontiers.
According to rights group Ain o Salish Kendra (ASK), 15 people were killed along the Bangladesh-India border in 2018, and the number rose to 43 last year.
BGB's Director (operations) Lt Col Fayzur Rahman earlier told The Daily Star that all important border related issues would be discussed and border killings was one of them.
Untreated household, industrial, and medical waste flowing into Bangladesh via a canal in Akhaura would also take priority during the discussions, officials said.
Lt Col Fayzur said, "The entry of waste from India through Akhaura-Agartala ICP [check post] will also get priority in the talks as we have been trying hard to stop the inflow of such waste."
The BGB official said chemical waste was flowing in via a canal even though India had been claiming that it was only human waste.
Other issues to be discussed at the meeting included cross-border smuggling -- especially of drugs -- and construction of structures like barbed wire fences and other installations.
Officials in India earlier said issues like better mechanisms to stop attacks and assault on BSF personnel and Indian civilians by criminals of both countries were expected to be discussed, reports our New Delhi correspondent.
The Indian side was also expected to take up the issue of joint border security management, fencing of unfenced areas, and effective steps to curb cross-border crimes.
Cattle smuggling, smuggling of fake Indian currency, illegal migration, human trafficking, breaching or damaging the border fence and illegal crossing by Rohingya refugees would also be discussed, Indian officials said.