New Age | Newspaper
India should heed global concern over BSF killings
A report of the US online news company GlobalPost, which terms the India-Bangladesh border Wall of Death and Berlin Wall of South Asia, would certainly find concurrence with what most Bangladeshis feel about the 4,000-kilometre border between the two countries. For years, the barbed-wire fencing being installed by India has served as a monument of insult to good relations between the two countries, while the rampant extrajudicial killings by the Indian Border Security Force, of unarmed Bangladeshis over the decades, has done great disservice to Bangladeshi peoples perception about Indias attitude towards Bangladesh.
The report explores the history of India-Bangladesh relations starting from 1947, including Indias help in Bangladeshs liberation war in 1971, and also the Indian side of the discourse which is dominated with concerns of the illegal migration of Bangladeshis into India. Bangladeshis, in India, are often blamed for unemployment, crime, terrorism, low-key Talibanisation and disturbing the Indian sex-ratio, the report points out.
It is pertinent to remember that exactly one year ago, on January 7, 2011, the killing of Felani Khatun, a Bangladeshi bride-to-be who was shot dead while trying to sneak into Bangladesh from India, for her wedding ceremony, brought the issue of killing of Bangladeshis by the BSF to the international fore.
The picture of Felanis corpse hanging from the fence caused a huge uproar in Bangladesh. According to Odhikar, a rights-based organisation, over 1,000 Bangladeshis have been killed in the hands of BSF in the last decade, while the BSF has itself admitted to killing 364 Bangladeshis till 2006. These and many such information have found their way into this latest report on the India-Bangladesh border.
It is heartening to note that the international media is slowly picking up on this issue that has caused Bangladeshis such anguish and humiliation over the years, including the investigative report Trigger Happy by Amnesty International in 2011 which explored BSF killings of both unarmed Bangladeshis and Indians.
However, this development and many more important ones, including an agreement signed between Indian and Bangladeshi border guard chiefs in March 2011 have failed to stem the flow of killing of Bangladeshis by the Indian border guards. According to Odhikar, 25 Bangladeshis died at the hands of the BSF between January and November 2011, with at least five of the killings coming after assurances were provided by Indian home minister P Chidambaram.
According to the GlobalPost report, after the signing of the agreement on the use of non-lethal weapons, the BSF has resorted to inhumane methods of killing such as fatal beating, strangling, stoning and poisonous injections.
Moreover, as the report points out what we have always known that such strong-arm tactics that have jeopardised relations between the two countries over the years have hardly managed to ebb the flow of illegal cattle trade or illegal migration, the excuse on which such killings are committed.
The time has come for the Indian government to realise that while they can ignore the voice of their smaller neighbours, it would be fatal to do such a thing on the international front where so much is at stake for the emerging world power and its global image. Time has also come for the incumbent Bangladeshi government to realise that when India-Bangladesh borders are described as the Berlin Wall of South Asia trying to expedite friendly relations with the big neighbour by making lopsided offerings will not go down well with the people of the country.
