No night curfew along border with India: B'desh

Bangladesh on Monday virtually ruled out imposing a dawn-to-dusk curfew on its side of the porous border as done by India to check illegal cross-border movement at night even as border guarding forces of the two countries agreed on expanding ground-level cooperation to ensure peace.

"I personally...or the stand point of Bangladesh is (that) within the international boundary of each country, each citizen has the right to move and you must understand that (curfew by BSF) is a temporary measure...that cannot resolve the issue...a long outsanding issue.

"We don't believe in curfew, rather we believe in sensitising the border areas' population so that they are aware of the consequences of crossing the border without any documents. We don't believe...our stand point (is) we don't believe in curfew or any other restriction within the territorial boundary of Bangaldesh," Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB) DG Major General Anwar Hussain told media persons after the border-level conference between the two forces.

Maj Gen Hussain, who led a 22-member delegation, also said both the forces have worked out some "out-of-the-box" solutions to ensure safety and security along the frontier.

"In the last four days, we tried to work out the practical modalities about how we are going to execute the decision taken at Home Ministers-level. We discussed in an out-of-the-box...in a very pragmatic way to deal with situation in the border area...we have reached certain agreements to be implemented at the ground level," the BGB DG said.

"We have come to a consensus that we have common enemies to fight", the BGB chief said who was flanked by BSF Director General U K Bansal.

Hussain said both the forces will enhance exchange of information and will have "mini-interactive" sessions at regular intervals among various ranks of the commanders on the border, beginning from border-out-post to company and sector commanders level.

Both the forces will also "sensitise" the population in border areas on their sides and urge them to carry valid documents while crossing over to the other side.

"I am very happy to report to you that we have reached and advanced our understanding of the issues on the border. We have a far better understanding of issues of concern to both countries and most importantly we have been able to achieve a high-level of understanding on how to address those issues in the best interest of both countries," BSF chief Bansal said.

Hussain said both the forces have agreed to "enhance interaction on the field to address issues on ground rather than allowing them to linger on for years together."

"We have agreed to be more professional in sharing information so that we can jointly combat common enemies," he said.

During the four-day conference, the BSF, according to DG Bansal, handed over to their Bangladeshi counterparts a list of 51 camps and twenty-two Indian insurgent group leaders present in their territory.

"I must add a word of caution here..this information (the list handed over) needs verification by Bangladeshi authorities," Bansal said.

"It is our shared concern that violence and crime on the border should be brought to the minimum possible extent and we have agreed to address this problem jointly," the BSF DG added.