In spite of the friendly bilateral relations that Bangladesh and India enjoy, border killings have still proven to be a sticking point for the two nations even after a fair number of assurances from Delhi that the number of lives lost due to the phenomenon would be brought down to zero.
The recent killings of a number of Bangladeshi farmers at the hands of India's Border Security Force (BSF), clearly state otherwise. On June 6, two Bangladeshi farmers were shot along the border in Kasba upazila of Brahmanbaria dead by the BSF, with another Bangladeshi farmer being sentenced to a similar fate near the border area in Thakurgaon's Ranishankail upazila on June 10.
Such trigger happy behaviour from the BSF cannot be tolerated, and the government needs to ensure that this message is heard loud and clear by Delhi.
As things stand, there has been next to zero evidence that the more rogue members of the BSF who engage in these killings are ever made to face any sort of disciplinary measures. If indeed rogue officials are responsible for these killings, then they must be brought to book in a more open, public manner. Of course, given the persistent pattern of these killings, it is clear that this is a deeper problem on a governmental level.
This must be addressed without delay.
It has been over a decade that the image of 15-year-old Bangladeshi Felani Khatun's deceased body hanging on a border fence shook the world to the core, exposing the sheer brutality that the BSF is capable of. Not much seems to have changed since then as the number of Bangladeshis being killed by India's border guards keeps racking up.
Clearly a humanitarian plea is not enough for these deaths to stop. If India wishes to retain the friendly relations that it currently enjoys with Bangladesh, they need to address this issue and punish the offending BSF officials openly.
