The New Nation - Internet Edition

BSS, Dhaka

Bangladesh Rifles (BDR) and Border Security Force (BSF) of India are to hold Director General-level meeting today, with a set of agenda to resolve outstanding frontier issues and explore ways for intensified cooperation between the two paramilitary forces.

Officials said the killing of and gunfire on BDR personnel and unarmed Bangladeshi villagers by BSF and Indian nationals at the frontier would top the BDR agenda while the BSF was likely to stress on crimes committed by Bangladeshi miscreants on the other side of the border.

According to a BDR statement, the other issues to be raised include arrest, detention and abduction of Bangladeshis by the Indian border guards and nationals, border trespassing and intrusion by the BSF men and their nationals, cross-border drug smuggling to Bangladesh and Indian construction of defence infrastructures, roads, bunkers and military barbed wire fencing within 150 yards of the zero lines.

"We will also raise the issues of Bangladeshi criminals and gangsters who took refuge in Indian soil, the obstruction in development works near the border and several other security issues," a BDR spokesman said.

He said the BSF side was also likely to raise the issue of alleged illegal migration of Bangladeshis and trafficking of women and children to India, cross-border smuggling of Indian cattle, and counterfeiting of Indian currency in Bangladesh and repatriation of detained ULFA leader Paresh Barua to India.

The spokesman said both sides also had a list of proposals for strengthening cooperation and friendly relations between the frontier forces.

BDR's Director general Major General Shakil Ahmed would lead a 22-member delegation while his counterpart Ashish Kumar Mitra would lead a 19-member delegation in the meeting, which held twice in a year-one in Dhaka and other in New Delhi.

Both the delegations would comprise concerned Home, Foreign Ministry and Land Ministry officials and Joint River Commission (JRC) officials of Bangladesh, the BDR spokesman said.