The chief of Border Guards Bangladesh (BGB) said here on Friday that there was no large-scale infiltration from Bangladesh to India and in the past six months, only 100 infiltrators were intercepted along the border.
On a visit here for biannual talks with the Border Security Force (BSF), Major-General Shafeenul Islam, Director-General of the BGB, denied the presence of any Indian insurgent groups (IIGs) in Bangladesh. “There is no IIG hideout in Bangladesh and the country does not allow its soil to be used by any entities or elements hostile to any country,” he told BSF chief K.K. Sharma during the biannual talks.
“There is no large-scale infiltration from Bangladesh. As you know the development curve in Bangladesh ... we are having a GDP of 7.1 and the people enjoy a very good life now in Bangladesh. So, there is hardly any migration in an organised way or large-scale manner,” he said at a joint press conference with the BSF.
Cultural reasons
He said Bangladeshis mostly crossed over to India because of the cultural ties they shared with people across the border.
“But they come back after visiting their friends and family. We have found out that this is mostly the case,” he said.
Mr. Sharma said the BSF had apprehended 1,522 illegal Bangladeshi migrants so far this year. Of these, 166 were inadvertent crossers while some were victims of human trafficking, he said.
“We are sensitising our troops to differentiate between the victim and the perpetrator of the crime of human trafficking,” Mr. Sharma said.
Both the chiefs said cattle smuggling had gone down. “Cattle smuggling (incidents), of late, have come down. There are many reasons for this, one being that we are more vigilant. Another is that there is less demand on the other side (Bangladesh) as they have started dairy farming, and animal husbandry is a very important economic activity now and lots of loans are being given in Bangladesh (to people who want to rear cattle). I am not saying it has been completely stopped but since ages the local population is dependent on that and there are a number of riverine and ‘nallah’ gaps on that border and it is comparatively easy to push animals and receive them on the other side,” Mr. Sharma said.
Major-General Shafeenul Islam said the number of killings of Bangladeshi people at the hands of the BSF along the 4,096-km shared border had come down as a number of them were involved in cattle smuggling.
“Bangladesh has more concern about border killings and this is mostly happening with those who were associated with cattle smuggling. Having understood that, both the forces have worked together on this front...we were able to take down [the figure of border killing] to only one…We have agreed to take it down to zero level,” he said.
Mr. Sharma expressed concern about the smuggling of fake notes.
“DG BGB replied that, Law Enforcement Agencies of Bangladesh are taking action against FICN racketeers and the government has already placed machines to detect fake currency notes at all integrated checkposts along the border and many other places across the country,” a press statement issued by the BSF said.
