– Personnel of Border Guard Bangladesh walked up to Zero Line and objected to move, but villagers did not budge
GBT News: Residents of Andaran-Kharkharia village located in the Mekhliganj subdivision of Cooch Behar, which shares borders with Dahagram-Angarpota, the sole Bangladeshi enclave, put up bamboo poles to bolster the barbed wire fencing on Tuesday to prevent illegal activities at the border.
Though personnel of the Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB) walked up to the Zero Line and objected to the move, the villagers did not budge.
Eventually, the BGB personnel left the spot as the Border Security Force (BSF) intervened in the issue.
“On January 10, we had put up fences along a 3.5km stretch as our village shared an unfenced border with the Bangladeshi enclave. Later, the BSF fastened glass bottles along the fence so that we would be alerted by clinking sounds if anyone tried to breach the fence. Now, we have put up bamboo poles to ensure that there is no space between barbed wires for anybody to sneak in,” said Anup Roy, a local TMC leader.
Since last August, after the fall of the Sheikh Hasina government in Bangladesh, the BSF and Indians near the India-Bangladesh border have taken initiatives to install fences along the unfenced stretches in some locations across Bengal and some states of the Northeast.
However, in all these places, the work came to a halt following objections by the BGB and the Muhammad Yunus-led interim government of Bangladesh.
“It is only in our place that we could put up the fences. This is because according to the agreement between the two countries, fences can be put up on the Zero Line if there is an enclave on the other side,” said Tapas Barman, a villager.
In other locations, fences can be put up at a distance of 150 years from the Zero Line on both sides.
The villagers of Andaran-Kharkharia asserted again that the Bangladeshi enclave, which is connected to the mainland of the neighbouring country through the Tinbigha corridor, had been unfenced, which made them feel “insecure”.
“These unfenced stretches are often used for smuggling and infiltration. Considering the present state of affairs in Bangladesh, we have put up our own fences. Otherwise we feel insecure. The BSF is there but there is always a risk if the border remains unfenced,” Barman added.
Sources in the BSF said they have intensified vigil in the area.
“Our personnel are intensively monitoring certain places like the border that we share with the sole Bangladeshi enclave and the adjoining Tinbigha corridor,” said a source.
Seizure
Acting on a tip-off, the BSF seized 467 bottles of cough syrup and 500 analgesic tablets from Balupara, a village in South Dinajpur district near the India-Bangladesh border,
on Wednesday.
Sources said that the medicines were seized from near the border where smugglers from Bangladesh, with the help of some Indian smugglers, were trying to carry those items to Bangladesh.
The on-duty BSF personnel got alert and challenged them, prompting the smugglers to escape while leaving the bottles and the tablets.
