http://www.newagebd.com/2009/jul/09/oped.html#1
The marauders on the border
There are numerous known incidents of the BSF men crossing the border and entering Bangladeshi territory and killing innocent civilians on their own soil. There has never been any known or reported case of BDR members entering Indian territory or attacking unarmed Indian civilians, writes Nadim Jahangir
A BANGLADESHI cattle trader was killed by Indian Border Security Force along Baraachara border early Saturday. Local people said the BSF troops of the nearby Haridaspur camp caught Rubel, a young man aged 25, after a hot chase late at night when he was returning home after paying money to Indian traders for purchasing cattle. They said the BSF men beat up Rubel indiscriminately and killed him by giving electric shock. Later, they left the body along the border (New Age, June 28). It has become a common phenomenon that the Border Security Force, in the name of border patrol, kills innocent Bangladeshis. The Bangladesh government must take this issue seriously and talk to the Indian counterpart on a regular basis to tackle the crisis.
The Border Security Force is a border patrol agency of the government of India and a component of the Paramilitary Forces of India. Its main role is to guard India’s international borders during peacetime and also prevent trans-national crime. Similarly, Bangladesh has a paramilitary force, the Bangladesh Rifles, mainly assigned to guarding the borders of the country. Apart from its primary task of protecting the borders, the members of the Bangladesh Rifles have taken part in other military operations. This force was ordained with the additional task of checking smuggling in 1958.
However, rather than protecting the borders like the BDR, the BSF members seem to be more occupied with killing innocent Bangladeshi civilians indiscriminately in the name of curbing smuggling and preventing crime. According to a report published in 2005 by a human rights organisation, the BSF killed one Bangladeshi every five days. These figures are definitely alarming. BSF men are known to kill or often kidnap Bangladeshi farmers by labelling them as smugglers or criminals. Some farmers are known to have been kidnapped while they were working on their farms in the border regions of Bangladesh. According to the human rights coalition Odhikar, the BSF has killed 743 Bangladeshis in total and injured 806 and abducted 886 between January 1, 2000 and January 31, 2009.
A lot of tension prevails in the border regions due to this matter. There are often reports of exchange of gunfire between the BDR and the BSF. In some incidents, border guards of both nations are reported to have been seriously injured and, in some cases, killed. Flag meetings are held between BDR and BSF high officials to either protest against or resolve these situations.
In 2001 there was a severe border conflict between the BDR and the BSF. This led to the BSF filing a formal complaint against the BDR accusing them of war crimes. The BDR was accused of killing 16 BSF officials during April 18-20, 2001. The BSF also mentioned in their complaint that only eight bodies could be identified as it was impossible to identify the other bodies due to decomposition and mutilation. In an article titled ‘BSF lodges “war crimes” FIR against BDR. Is right of legitimate self-defence a “war crime”?’, AH Monjurul Kabir, a Chevening scholar and director of Law Watch, a Dhaka-based think-tank on human rights and legal issues, tried to shed light on this rather curious instance. In his article, Kabir defined what war crime means and clearly pointed out how the BDR members could not have been involved in any such activity. He also highlighted several possibilities of what might have caused the bodies to decompose or appear to have been mutilated. The bodies could easily have decomposed as they were recovered 36 hours after the exchange of gunfire started. The bodies were recovered from paddy fields where they had remained in the open for 36 hours. This caused the bodies to decompose. Moreover, the bodies were recovered by villagers once they began to reek. And there was no way that the BDR men could have mutilated the bodies amidst the incessant gunfire. The injuries to the BSF members could also have been caused by the villagers whose houses were attacked and also set ablaze by the BSF members. The villagers could have had struggles with the BSF to protect themselves and their property.
It was surprising how the BSF could accuse the BDR of war crimes because they have a proven record of intruding on Bangladeshi soil and killing civilians without any provocation. Therefore, such an attempt to charge the BDR of war crimes was totally inappropriate and baseless. Because of that conflict 10,000 to 20,000 villagers living in the area had to flee, with at least 17 suffering wounds. Many villages were also destroyed in the fighting.
In a report published by a human rights organisation, it was said that the inhabitants of the border areas in Bangladesh seem to live in constant fear. Not only do the BSF kill innocent Bangladeshis without provocation, there are also reports of women being raped and houses looted. Often the BSF take the dead bodies of the people they kill and do not return them.
There are also rumours regarding some members of both the BSF and the BDR being involved in cattle smuggling in the border areas of India and Bangladesh. An incident related to cattle smuggling left two BDR men dead in July 2008. The media in both India and Bangladesh carried contradictory reports on this incident. Some reports accused the BDR of assisting the cattle smugglers and the BSF men trying to stop them and this led to exchange of gun fire which resulted in the death of two BDR men. Other reports claimed that BSF men had illegally entered into Bangladesh territory. When the BDR became aware of their presence and challenged their intrusion, the BSF men opened fire and killed two BDR men.
In another recent incident that occurred in November 2008, BSF men killed three Bangladeshi civilians including a minor boy in Panchagarh. BDR officials of Pachagarh 25 Battalion reported that around ten drunken BSF men entered Maynaguri village near the Majhipara border, which is at least 500 metres inside Bangladesh, and ransacked several houses. When the villagers protested, the BSF men fired at random, killing three people and wounding one. However, when formal protests were made by BDR officials and flag meeting was held, the BSF expressed their regret for the incident and informed of taking action against the accused person.
This incident also led the BSF to get into legal trouble when the brother of one of the men killed by the BSF in that incident filed a case against them with the aid of the Bangladesh Human Rights Commission. The accused BSF member had been caught by the villagers during the shooting and was later handed over to BSF authorities after the BSF had apologised for the unfortunate incident. The secretary of the Human Rights Commission’s upazila unit, A Rahman Mukul, demanded exemplary punishment of the accused BSF members and compensation for the families of the victims.
There are numerous known incidents of the BSF men crossing the border and entering Bangladeshi territory and killing innocent civilians on their own soil. There has never been any known or reported case of BDR members entering Indian territory or attacking unarmed Indian civilians. In the past five months alone, i.e. January to May, the BSF has killed seven Bangladeshi civilians. Most of these men were Bangladeshi cattle traders.
The Indian high commissioner to Bangladesh, Pinak Ranjan Chakravarty, justified such merciless killings of the BSF by labelling the victims as ‘criminals and smugglers’. The extrajudicial killings of the BSF cannot be justified this way as they are a violation of national and international laws. It is high time that the Bangladesh government discussed this issue seriously with the Indian government. Rather than holding flag meetings every time BSF invades Bangladeshi territory or kills innocent civilians in the name of curbing crime, some definite steps must be taken to put a stop to this matter permanently and allow the inhabitants of the border areas to live a peaceful life which is free of terror.
Dr Nadim Jahangir is professor and director, School of Business, Independent University, Bangladesh
