Bangladesh and India share a border of 2,429 miles.[1] Bangladeshi Divisions of Khulna, Rajshahi, Rangpur, Mymensingh, Sylhet and Chittagong along with Indian states of West Bengal, Assam, Meghalaya, Tripura and Mizoram are situated along the border. The border is more than blotted with numbered pillars. Small demarcated portions of the border is fenced on both sides.
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The border of present day Bangladesh first came into being when the Bengal Presidency was created by the British. When India became independent from Britain in 1947, the country was divided among Muslim and non-Muslim majority areas. Likewise the provinces of Punjab, Bengal and the Sylhet district of Assam were also bifurcated and the border came into being. Muslims were the majority in the western part of India and the eastern part of Bengal province. These two areas formed the new Islamic republic of Pakistan. East Pakistan became Bangladesh in the Bangladesh Liberation War of 1971.
The border divides the Ganges delta region and the Sundarban mangrove forest. It is crisscrossed by a large number of rivers. The area is mostly flat with slight hilly terrain in Meghalaya, Assam, Tripura and Mizoram sections. The border area is densely populated. The land is extremely fertile and is cultivated right up to the border pillars. Sometimes the border line passes right through villages, even buildings. The area is patrolled by the Indian Border Security Force BSF of India and BGB of Bangladesh.
A large amount of smuggling occurs in the border area. Livestock, food items and drugs are smuggled from India into Bangladesh. Illegal immigrants from Bangladesh cross into India to find jobs. India's BSF maintains a shoot-at-sight policy for any Bangladeshi.[2][3][4] Each year hundreds of Bangladeshis lose their lives at the hand of BSF while trying to cross the border. The border has also witnessed occasional skirmishes between BSF and BDR such as in 2001.
BSF has often been accused by Bangladesh government of incursions into Bangladesh territory, and indiscriminate shooting of civilians along the India-Bangladesh borders. This was in retaliation to massive illegal immigration from Bangladesh into India, for which the Indo-Bangladeshi Barrier is presently underway/[5] In a news conference in August 2008, Indian BSF officials admitted that they killed 59 illegals (34 Bangladeshis, 21 Indians, rest unidentified) who were trying to cross the border during the prior six months.[6]
Bangladeshi media accused the BSF of abducting 5 Bangladeshi children, aged between 8 and 15, from the Haripur Upazila in Thakurgaon District of Bangladesh, in 2010. The children were setting fishing nets near the border.[7] In 2010, Human Rights Watch has accused the Border Security Force of indiscriminate killings. BSF allegedly killed a 15 years old Bangladeshi girl on 7 January 2011 while she and her father was climbing the Indo-Bangladeshi barrier using a ladder.[8]
In 2010, Human Rights Watch (HRW) issued a 81 page report which detailed hundreds of abuses by the BSF. The report was compiled from interviews with victims of BSF shootings, witnesses and members of the BSF and its Bangladeshi counterpart. The report alleged that over 900 Bangladeshi citizens have been killed in the first decade of the 21st century by the BSF. According to HRW, while most of them were killed when they crossed into Indian territory to smuggle or to rustle cattle.
Many conferences have been held between India and Bangladesh to discuss such issues as smuggling and trespassing, cattle lifting, trafficking of drugs and arms. Colonel Muhammad Shahid Sarwar of Bangladesh Rifles gave Border Security Force a list of miscreants who took shelter in India, and the BSF side also handed over a similar list to the BDR.
In July 2009 Channel 4 News reported that hundreds of Bangladeshis and Indians are indiscriminately killed by the BSF along the Indo-Bangladeshi Barrier.
The border area is dotted with over a hundred Indian exclaves within Bangladesh, and over fifty Bangladeshi exclaves within India. They result from pre-colonial treaties between the Maharajah of Cooch Behar and the Nawab of Rangpur, and were maintained at the time of partition between India and what was then East Pakistan in 1947. Residents of the exclaves generally live in miserable conditions, lacking access to basic services such as healthcare or electricity. These are not provided by their own government, as they are isolated from it by a strip of foreign land; nor are they provided by the surrounding state. They cannot visit their own country without crossing the international border surrounding the exclave.[9]
In September 2011, the two countries agreed on land swaps to resolve the issue. The exclaves' population, over 50,000 people, would have a say in the matter, and each person would ultimately be allowed to choose their nationality.[10]
India is presently constructing the Indo-Bangladeshi barrier, a 4,000 kilometer fence of barbed wire and concrete just under 3 metres high, to prevent illegal immigration and the smuggling of weapons and narcotics. Flood lights are also being installed in the West Bengal sector. The project was sanctioned for 2881 crore rupees (600 million US dollars) and was expected to be complete by 2009. As of November 2007, 2529 km of border fencing was completed.[11]
Under the former government of Khaleda Zia, Bangladesh troops clashed with the Indian Border Security Force in an attempt to prevent the fencing. Some indigenous Assamese fear that they, as a people, will be reduced to a minority in Assam if unabated infiltration from Bangladesh continues.[12][13]
There is no clear completion date for the US $1.2 billion project yet. The barrier when complete will be patrolled by the Border Security Force. The fence will also be electrified at some stretches. In Assam, 197 km of the 263 km border has been fenced.[14]
The BSF claims that the barrier's main purpose is to check illegal immigration, and prevent cross-border terrorism.[15]
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