A Border Guard Bangladesh member was shot and another abducted by Myanmar’s Border Guard Police in the Naf River near Jadimura area of Teknaf border in Cox’s Bazar yesterday.
“The bullet-hit BGB man is soldier Biplob, age 35. He was admitted to the Cox’s Bazar Sadar Hospital. Later, he was shifted to the Combined Military Hospital in Chittagong,” Teknaf 42 BGB battalion Commander Lt Col Abuzar Al-Zahid told the Dhaka Tribune.
Regarding the abducted BGB man, he said: “BGP informed that he is fine and will be returned after some formalities, possibly by Thursday.”
The local commanding officer said that the BGB had tried to bring the BGP to a flag meeting the entire day. But the Myanmar side informed that they had formalities such as getting permission from their government before such a meeting could take place.
In a briefing at Bangladesh Secretariat yesterday afternoon, Bangladesh’s State Minister for Home Affairs Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal told reporters: “During the patrolling hour, a misunderstanding arose between the BGB and the BGP near the zero line on the Naf River. The shooting is a result of that.”
According to a BGB press release issued in Dhaka yesterday, a seven-member team of the BGB on two boats were patrolling the area from the Jadimura canal to the Dumdumia border outpost.
“They were conducting routine patrol on civil boats. Suddenly, around 5:30am, soldiers of the Myanmar BGP appeared with a boat, opened fire on one of the BGB boats, injuring the arm of one soldier. The BGB team also retaliated with gunshots,” the release reads.
At one stage, the two sides locked into a scuffle, the release says. However, at that time, the second boat arrived at the scene. The BGP men then disappeared and took BGB Naik Razzaq and his SMG along with them.
The rest of the members of that boat saved themselves by jumping into the river and swam ashore, says the release.
This is the second such incident since the Myanmar authorities abolished its Nasaka force in July 2013 and deployed the Border Guard Police.
One year ago
On May 28, 2014, another BGB naik named Mizanur Rahman was allegedly abducted and killed by the Myanmar frontier force near the Paanchhari border in Naikkhongchhari of Bandarban district.
Two days later, the BGP was supposed to return Mizanur’s body to the BGB. But, when the Bangladeshi border guards went to receive the body, the BGP men opened fire on them instead of handing the body over.
BGB said Naik Mizanur was patrolling the border to check Rohingya infiltration.
Amid high tension between the two sides, the BGP returned the naik’s body on May 31. In a flag meeting held on June 3, BGB protested the killing and demanded a probe and punishment for the killer. But as of now, the Myanmar force has not done anything in that connection.
The same day, the Myanmar Times had reported: “Through articles in state media, Nay Pyi Taw [capital of Myanmar] has insisted [that] its soldiers were acting on information that insurgents from the Rohingya Solidarity Organisation were active in the area, and the Bangladeshi troops were attacked because they were not wearing Border Guard Bangladesh uniforms or identification.
“Police Colonel Min Aung, a deputy director of the Defense and Security Department, told Democratic Voice of Burma that the BGB troops were responsible for the conflict because they were not wearing the BGB insignia. Instead, they were wearing yellow camouflage uniforms without armbands.”
The report also said: “They were shot at because they encroached on our territory without any identifiable insignia, leading our troops to assume they were insurgents.”
When reminded about that incident, CO Zahid replied: “BGP was supposed to inform us about the progress but they have not as yet, although they regretted the incident at that time.”
Asked about the confusion about uniforms, Zahid said: “Definitely our soldiers were in uniforms when that incident took place. But that was also a case of misunderstanding between the two sides, no doubt.
“It was very early in the morning and in the poor light none of the sides could see that the others were wearing uniforms,” he explained.
The nearly 271km border between Bangladesh and Myanmar is divided into two parts – a 64km zero line boundary on the Naf River and a 208km land boundary.