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HomeDefenceBorder Guard Bangladesh chief dismisses reports of attacks on Hindus as media 'exaggeration'

Border Guard Bangladesh chief dismisses reports of attacks on Hindus as media ‘exaggeration’

Major General Mohammad Ashrafuzzaman Siddiqui, who was in India for border talks with the BSF, also said the law & order situation in the country was a 'political' problem.

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New Delhi: Rejecting Indian media reports of an increase in the number of attacks on minorities, including Hindus, in Bangladesh, the chief of the Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB), Major General Mohammad Ashrafuzzaman Siddiqui, Thursday called it an exaggeration by the media.

“The attacks on minorities in the recent past are an exaggeration in the media. To be honest, such attacks on minorities, per se, did not happen,” Siddiqui said.

He was responding to a question during a press conference in New Delhi after the conclusion of the Director General (DG)-level border talks with India—the first since the fall of the Sheikh Hasina government in Bangladesh. 

Since then, media reports have suggested that minorities, including Hindus, were increasingly being targeted in violence across the country.

The chief of the Border Guard Bangladesh said that there was some instability in the law and order of Bangladesh, but it had more to do with the political reasons than the targeting of the minority, pointing to the peaceful organisation of Durga Puja, celebrated by Bengali Hindus, across Bangladesh as an example.

“Law enforcement agencies were precisely and strictly tasked by the Bangladesh government so that the Hindu community could perform the festival,” Siddiqui told reporters.

“The BGB jurisdiction is within 8 km, and BGB personnel provided security to quite a bit of pandals. Overall, the law and order situation was some bit of a political problem, but it, definitely, was not on minorities themselves.”

The BGB DG’s response comes as a complete contrast to the stance of the Indian government, which had, in November last year, expressed concerns at the alleged surge of “extremist rhetoric, increasing incidents of violence and provocation” and said that those developments can’t be dismissed as “media exaggerations”.

At a press briefing on 29 November last year, Randir Jaiswal, spokesperson of the Ministry of External Affairs, said, “India has consistently and strongly raised with the Bangladesh government the threats and targeted attacks on Hindus and other minorities…We once again call upon Bangladesh to take all steps for the protection of minorities.”

However, Siddiqui Thursday conceded that “several” distress calls were received from minorities within the BGB’s jurisdiction but said it had only been in the initial few months after the change of government in Bangladesh.


Also Read: India summons top Bangladesh diplomat as tensions over border fencing escalate


Infiltration gone down ‘substantially’

The latest four-day talks, the 55th Director General-level Border Coordination Conference, began Monday at the New Delhi headquarters of the BSF, with its Director General Daljit Singh Chaudhary in attendance.

India shares a 4,096 km-long border with Bangladesh, from Meghalaya to West Bengal, and both the border security forces have been holding these DG-level meetings twice a year alternatively in Dhaka and New Delhi since 1993.

The last meeting had taken place in Dhaka in March last year, with the India leg, scheduled to take place in October in New Delhi, postponed in the wake of the changed circumstances in Bangladesh.

At the press conference, BSF DG Chaudary said cross border infiltration over the last few months, an issue raised by the BSF, had decreased “substantially” and that the BSF and BGB were working together closely to curb illegal movement across the border.

Moreover, both DGs emphasised the discussion over fencing and construction work within 150 yards, which would be solved on a mutually agreed-upon basis and after joint inspection on the ground.

Siddiqui also refuted that the BGB was carrying out permanent construction within 150 yards of the international border as “factually incorrect”.

On if there was any change of agendas that were discussed during the latest edition of the bi-annual talks, the BSF DG said that the border between India and Bangladesh have been very dynamic with very frequent developments and hence the topics of discussion change between one meeting to another, but larger theme of maintaining peace and tranquillity at the border remains the same.

According to the BSF, during the talks, the BSF highlighted increasing cases of assault on BSF personnel and Indian civilians by Bangladesh-based criminals and emphasised the prevention of cross border crimes, the presence of Indian Insurgent Groups in Bangladesh, and the fencing of the border.

On the other hand, the BGB delegation raised issues such as alleged intrusion on the Bangladeshi side by BSF and Indian police personnel, construction work by the Indian side within 150 yards of the international border, the establishment of an Effluent Treatment plant (ETP) for canals carrying wastewater from Agartala to Akhaura, as well as the alleged movement of armed miscreants inside India.

Both these forces mutually agreed to increase numbers of coordinate patrolling in vulnerable areas, especially during the late night to early morning period, helping victims of human trafficking by facilitating their rescue and fastest rehabilitation, and enhancing the already established mechanism of real-time information sharing to make the international border “crime free”.

(Edited by Sanya Mathur)


Also Read: Hasina calls Yunus a ‘mobster’, vows to return to Bangladesh


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