BSF & BDR in verbal duel

Statesman News Service

MALDA,(India) March. 10. —Border Security Force officials have dismissed Bangladesh Rifles’ boastful claim of “regaining 1,100 hectares from India” as a “propaganda” exercise. “They mislead Bangladeshis by distorting border demarcations. When the River Mahananda changed its course, a lot of confusion was created. India is now reasserting its control, leaving the BDR making rather tall claims,” said a senior BSF official here. The Gulf Times reported on 8 March that the residents of Poladanga village in Chapainawabganj district expected that they would soon regain their ancestral 1,100 hectares which India had “appropriated” in 1947. The BDR was said to have “reoccupied the land across the River Mahananda on 3 March, thwarting the BSF.” The newspaper let it be known that “Nimgachhi and Joygovinda mouzas were now under the BDR’s control.” But sources in the BSF said India had regained more than 1,000 acres after a survey by both the countries. Bangladesh was said to have gained land opposite two Indian border outposts at Krishnanagar and Shuknagar. The residents of Poladanga, opposite the Sukhnagar BOP, may be happy but the land does not measure 1,100 hectares, a BSF official told this correspondent. “A make-over or a take-over” after the final demarcation was a figment of the imagination, it was claimed. The BSF is studying newspaper reports published in Bangladesh and elsewhere. A few days ago, its officials in Malda came to know that a Bangladesh-based newspaper had reported the “recovery” of 400 acres, inclusive of portions of the River Punarbhaba, “from India.” The entire area is actually in Malda and South Dinajpur but senior BSF officials apprehend fresh flare-ups along the border in the wake of the dissemination of such falsified information. #