http://www.newagebd.com/2010/jan/21/front.html#1
BDR wants night-time ban on movement in border
Expresses concerns about border killing
Siddiqur Rahman Khan
The Bangladesh Rifles has recommended imposing night-time restrictions on the movement of Bangladeshis within 150 yards of zero point inside the Bangladesh territory aimed at stopping the killing of innocent people in the border by India’s Border Security Force.
The Bangladesh border force in a report sent to the home ministry in the first week of January has also recommended formation of committees with public representatives in bordering villages.
The BDR personnel and the proposed committees will identify the places where restrictions should be imposed, the report said.
The report observed that citizens of both the countries were involved in cross-border informal trade but the Indian border guards often killed unarmed Bangladeshis without bothering about bilateral or international human rights principles.
‘Citizens of both the counties trespass into the territories of each other for informal trade. Although the Bangladesh Rifles has taken lawful action against such organised crimes, India’s Border Security Force has continued killing unarmed Bangladeshi trespassers labelling them as terrorists,’ the report said.
‘India’s Border Security Force has thus kept flouting the Joint India-Bangladesh Guideline 1975 and the International Human Rights Convention,’ it said. ‘No solutions could be reached in this regard despite discussions at the diplomatic level.’
In view of the situation, the Bangladesh Rifles has recommended that dusk-to-dawn restrictions should be imposed on the movement of Bangladeshis within 150 yards of zero point inside the Bangladesh territory.
After the mutiny in the Bangladesh Rifles headquarters in February 25–26, 2009, the Indian border guards have killed 50 Bangladeshis till January 1, 2010, according to the BDR report sent to the home ministry.
A recent report by human rights organisation Odhikar showed 96 Bangladeshis were killed by the Indian guards in 2009.
The BDR report said the Indian border guards had ignored a Bangladesh proposal for using non-lethal weapons in the border by the guards.
The report proposed each of the committees in bordering villages, to be headed by union council or municipal chairmen, should have 17 members and the commanders of the BDR border outposts concerned may be made member secretaries.
An imam of a mosque or religious leader of other faiths, a madrassah teacher, a schoolteacher, two representatives of college students, four Village Defence Party members, three union council members or municipal commissioners, a retired military officer or a civil servant, a businessman of the locality and a local policeman should be members on each of the committees.
A high home ministry official on Wednesday told New Age they had received the draft of the working paper, containing statistics of the people killed by the Indian border guards. ‘We held a meeting in the past week and discussed the Bangladesh Rifles recommendations,’ he said.
