Border guards deny tension

Statesman News Service

MALDA, March 12. — Indian border guards said today that there was no tension or provocation along the border to recapturing the 400 acres of Bangladeshi land mobilising massive troops with heavy arms and weapons. “There is no change in the earlier status of the land surveyed by both countries,” a commandant of Indian border guards said. Last Friday, the Bangladeshi newspaper, The New Nation, had reported that the border security force had mobilised massive troops with heavy weapons along the Sapahar border and was engaged in provocative activities with a view to recapturing 400 acres of Bangladeshi land. “As a result, tension has been prevailing along the border since Thursday. A large number of BSF personnel of the 172 Battalion armed with heavy weapons have taken position in the newly dug bunkers on the Indian side,” the newspaper reported. “The BDR instantly lodged a strong protest against the BSF attempt, since earlier, Bangladesh had got back the 400 acres of land from Indian occupation on 3 March after the completion of a joint survey,” The New Nation said. “No flag meeting was held. The information is wrong. Bangladesh did not get back the land on 3 March. There was no reinforcement besides routing patrolling,” the officer said on the telephone, to counter the report – “to restore peace in the area, an hour-long company commander- level flag meeting initiated by the BDR was held between the two border guards at 3.30 p.m. yesterday.” The BSF officers have alerted all its troops located at the Lakshmi Narayanpur border areas in Indian part when the report was published in Bangladesh on 6 March, saying that Bangladesh Rifles had reclaimed 400 acres of land, including some portion of the Punarbhaba river, from the possession of India after 1947. The BSF officials in the top level are monitoring all these things published in Bangladesh Newspaper. Recently Bangladesh based The Gulf Times had reported that “the residents of Poladanga village in Bangladesh expected that they would soon regain their ancestral 1,100 hectares which India had “ appropriated” in 1947”. The BSF and BDR had exchanged heavy fire in August last year in this region over the issue of area operation.