Shillong: Discarding a status quo agreement,
personnel of the Bangladesh Rifles on Sunday opened fire on Indian
villagers, prompting the BSF to retaliate at three places
along the international border in Meghalaya, but, there was no
report of any casualty.
Residents of Muktapur was engaged in fishing along the
border when the BDR personnel threatened and opened fire on
them. BSF personnel rushed to the area, escorted the villagers
to a safer place and retaliating the fire, BSF sources said.
Heavy exchange of fire between both the forces was also
reported from Ratangtila and Latangtila areas, all located
inside a three km distance from each other in Jaintia Hills
district.
However, there was no report of any casualty.
This is the third time this month that the BDR opened
unprovoked firing in the area bordering Sylhet district of
Bangladesh.
Two additional companies were deployed by BSF following
the previous two firing incidents on February 4 and 14, which
had led to evacuation of villagers to a safer place.
On February 17, a DDG-level coordination meeting was held
at Tamabil in Bangladesh to douse the tense situation and the
border guards of both the countries had agreed to maintain
status quo and not to fire at each other.
Earlier this week, Chief Minister DD Lapang had raised
the matter with Bangladesh premier Sheikh Hasina when he had
called on her at Dhaka and sought her intervention to defuse
the tension over "adverse possession" areas.
According to official records, currently, there are 551.8
acres of Bangladeshi land under "adverse possession" of India
while 226.81 acres of Indian land are under adverse possession
of Bangladesh.
The areas under "adverse possession", 11 of them in
Meghalaya sector, were formed when the two countries
demarcated the international boundary in mid-1960s.
BSF DG Raman Srivastava had visited the area on Friday
and claimed the "differences were amicably sorted out."
Describing the previous two firings as "minor incidents",
Srivastava had said, "there was some confusion on the attitude
of some personnel on the other side but effective steps were
taken to prevent recurring of such incidents."
PTI
