Border Guard Bangladesh 59th Battalion (Rohanpur) commander Lieutenant Colonel Golam Kibria on Thursday requested villagers not to rush to the border during any tensions, saying that the BGB was enough to face the Indian Border Security Force.
鈥楧on鈥檛 do anything at the border that could negatively impact us. As I am standing along the border as a team, there is no need for you to come here. I am enough to handle the BSF. When I need you, I will call for all the villagers to come, and we then all together will handle the BSF. Until I call you, do not crowd the border and disrupt our work,鈥� he said while addressing a views exchange meeting with the villagers in the bordering area at Bakher Ali Government Primary School at Shibganj in Chapainawabganj.
The BGB official made the remarks a day after a sector commander-level meeting between the BGB and the Indian Border Security Force on Wednesday decided that no one except Bangladeshi and Indian farmers would be allowed to enter the 150-yard area from the border pillars.
The decision came after Indian villagers on January 18 clashed with Bangladeshis over harvesting crops on the no man鈥檚 land along the border, leaving three people injured and erupting a fresh tension along the Chowka border in Chapainawabganj.
Golam Kibria also urged the local people to help them to curb smuggling on the border and prevent rumours over any border-related incidents.
Among others, Shibganj Upazila Nirbahi Officer Azhar Ali and Shibganj Police Station officer-in-charge Golam Kibria spoke at the meeting.
Earlier on January 8, tension erupted along Chowka border at Shibganj upazila in the district as the BSF began constructing fences along the border despite repeated objections from the BGB.
Tensions have persisted in the border areas since the final week of December of the past year as the Border Guard Bangladesh and local people protested against India鈥檚 construction of barbed wire fences at five points along the border in Chapainawabganj, Naogaon and Lalmonirhat.
On January 12, the foreign ministry summoned the Indian high commissioner to Bangladesh, Pranay Verma, and expressed concern over the construction of barbed wire fences and protested at the killing of a Bangladeshi national by the Indian BSF.
