BIG BATTLE

Bangladeshi cattle smugglers are sneaking into Indian territory and taking away herds of cattle with local help, reports

Manas R Bannerjee

Indian border guards are alarmed by the Bangladesh Rifle's 'well planned' firing in connivance with the cattle smugglers, along the Indo-Bangladesh border in the districts of West Bengal. A group of senior BSF officials fear the plan to develop relation with the BDR, for joint and coordinated patrolling along the border to check infiltration, would not be implemented due to regular exchange of fire. “This trend may turn into a big battle field along the border if there is a reported causality of any Indian force by BDR’s firing,” said a senior BSF officer under Malda sector. It was reported that, BSF and a Bangladeshi minister pointed out the problem of maintaining relation between the two countries, that produces some ‘misleading’ story by a group of Bangladeshi newspapers. “Without quoting proper authorities of Bangladeshi border guards and others story on India Bangladesh border is creating problem”, the minister said. In fact the Bangladesh government was reportedly embarrassed to reply to the Indian government following the protest lodged over the clippings of Bangladeshi newspapers. Over the past few weeks there were several reports of gun battle between BSF and BDR in North and South Bengal killing at least 10 Indian and Bangladeshi cattle smugglers. Senior BSF officials think that Bangladeshi border guards are being forced to allow cattle smugglers to meet up the present crisis of cattle in neighbouring country owing to price hike of beef and present crisis of it during political unrest. “Every night Bangladeshi cattle smugglers are sneaking into Indian Territory with the help of the BDR and they are taking away herds of cattle with the help of Indian smugglers”, said D V Saraswat, eputy inspector general of BSF, Malda sector. “Most interestingly, the Bangladeshi cattle smugglers attack the Indian border security forces whenever we challenge them. Even if our border security forces open fire for self-defence and to stop cattle smuggling, within no time the BDR men fire aiming at our country keeps a safe distance”, said Saraswat. The senior BSF are regularly accusing BDR officials of directly helping the cattle smugglers at routine flag meeting after a gun battle between them. Even the senior BSF officials already sent several protest notes on it to their counter parts informing their higher authorities. It may be noted that there is a red alert along the border in Indian Territory after the declaration of emergency in Bangladesh and import and export has been suspended in some land customs stations owing to several causes. It was reported that owing to BSF’s close vigil on the border with the help of Thermal Imager, a new and sophisticated device to watch the border at night. According to the BSF, smuggling of essential items for the poor people in Bangladesh is under control. And the Bangladeshi who used to attend some fairs and festivals has been restricted to cross the border. “Though it is not absolutely correct, according to the intelligence report labourers and carrier of fake currency from Bangladesh are crossing the border regularly, but the flow of infiltration has been checked at present,” said an IPS officer. After arrest of an Indian and seizing fake currency worth Rs 2 lakh on 16 January, S P Malda Mr D K Mondal said , “ we suspect that huge amount of fake currency, all 500 rupee notes, has been collected by the racket from Bangladesh.”“He was working as a carrier and has been instructed to hand over the fake currency to another person in Jharkhand. It was detected that the racketeers had planned to send that fake currency to Mumbai via Jharkhand.” Mr Mondal admitted that racketeers are using the densely populated Kaliachak area very close to Indo-Bangladesh border, as transit point and they are active to circulate fake currencies in this region. On the other hand, the Bangladeshi border guards reportedly denying charges and blamed the BSF for their negligence and atrocities of the Indian border guards on Bangladeshi people. For instance, The New Nation, a Bangladeshi news paper had reported on 23 and 24 December 2006 that “the Indian BSF is indiscriminately killing Bangladeshi innocent people in different border areas, sources said.” “BDR sources told The New Nation that the Indian BSF killed over 100 innocent Bangladeshi farmers and traders illegally this year. About eight people were killed this month and seven in November without any provocation”. According to The New Nation, “Muslims in different places in India demonstrated against the ban on slaughtering of cattle during Eid-ul-Azha. Many Muslims, in India cannot observe their greatest festival by slaughtering cattle during Eid-ul-Azha due to Hindu fundamentalism.”“The Indian authorities increased their vigilance teams in border areas and interrupted to trade cattle in Bangladesh on the eve of Eid-ul-Azha, sources said. It is worth mentioning that Bangladesh is the big importer of Indian cattle,” the news paper reported. “The Indian BSF increased their killing operation on Bangladeshi people in border areas, which created panic among the unarmed people just before forthcoming general election,” sources said. #

Pic: Pralependu Sanyal