Bangladesh will not be intimidated by barbed-wire border fences and will not remain silent if killings continue along the boundary with India, Dhaka-based news agency UNB quoted Humayun Kabir, the foreign affairs adviser to Bangladeshi Prime Minister Tarique Rahman as saying on Monday.
The comments came after West Bengal Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari on Monday said that the new Bharatiya Janata Party government in the state had approved the transfer of land to the Border Security Force to erect a fence along the border with Bangladesh.
Responding to a reporters’ questions, Kabir said that New Delhi needed to demonstrate a more “humane approach” in resolving problems along the border if it wants to strengthen people-to-people relations.
“The government of Bangladesh is also not afraid of barbed wire; where we need to talk, we will talk,” he was quoted as saying.
Kabir added that the rhetoric during election campaigns and governance can be separate and Dhaka was waiting to see whether the BJP government was following through on its poll promises.
“Let’s wait and give it some time to see whether the BJP government in West Bengal intends to carry the same rhetoric into governance,” the news agency quoted him as saying.
He added that Dhaka’s relationship was primarily with New Delhi, Prothom Alo reported. “We do not want to become involved in their internal politics,” he added.
Kabir was also quoted as saying that Dhaka will not remain silent if persons continue to be killed along the border.
“The border we saw during [former Prime Minister] Sheikh Hasina’s time will never be the same again,” he was quoted as having told reporters. “If someone wants to do something on the border in that way, this Bangladesh will not be the same Bangladesh that will sit and watch. Bangladesh also has its own plans on what to do. I hope things will not go that way.”
There have been at least two incidents since April 8 of Bangladeshis being killed in firing by the Border Security Force along the border. On Friday, two suspected Bangladeshi smugglers were killed in Tripura, a month after a Bangladeshi man allegedly attempting to cross into India was shot dead.
India’s Ministry of External Affairs had said on Thursday that it expects Dhaka to expedite the process of verifying the nationality of undocumented Bangladesh migrants so that they could be repatriated “in a smooth manner”.
The ministry spokesperson said that more than 2,860 cases of nationality verification are pending with Bangladesh, “some for over five years”.
Edited by Tanya Shrivastava
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