Amid concern over the verdict on the much-talked-about Felani murder case by an Indian BSF court, a six-day director general-level conference between Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB) and Indian Border Security Force (BSF) begins here on Sunday morning.
BGB Director General Major General Aziz Ahmed will lead a 19-member Bangladesh delegation while his counterpart BSF DG Shri Subhash Joshi the Indian side to the border conference to be held at BGB’s Pilkhana headquarters.
The conference will end on September 18 with the signing of a Joint Record of Discussion.
Sources said the home side will raise at the conference a number of issues relating to the security at the porous Indo-Bangla border, including the killing of unarmed Bangladeshi nationals by BSF and Indian citizens, cross-border movement of locals and criminals, smuggling of Indian firearms and narcotics into Bangladesh and illegal trespassing by BSF and Indian nationals into Bangladesh territory.
The conference will also discuss the possibility of holding Deputy Commissioner (DC)-level meeting of frontier districts of both sides regularly.
The border conference is going to be held in the wake of verdict in the Felani murder case. Felani Khatun, a 15-year-old Bangladeshi girl, was shot dead by a BSF man while she was entering Bangladesh over the barbed-wire fences along Anantapur border point in Kurigram district on January 7, 2011, triggering a huge global outcry.
On September 6, the special court, constituted by the Indian Border Security (BSF), in its verdict acquitted the lone accused, BSF constable Amiya Ghosh, of the charge of killing Felani.
The verdict also drew strong criticisms. Amid the widespread criticism for the acquittal of a BSF member of the charge of killing Felani Khatun, Indian Border Security Force (BSF) has finally decided to revise the murder trial.
The DG-level meeting between the two border guarding forces is a biannual affair with each country hosting its counterpart once at its national capital.
The last BGB-BSF DG-level border conference was held in New Delhi on March 18 this year.
Source: UNBConnect
