At least six Bangladeshi news outlets on Tuesday reported that the Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB) and India’s Border Security Force (BSF) exchanged fire at a border area. However, a BSF source refuted the claims, telling India Today Digital that the news was “entirely fake”.
The Bangladeshi media outlets reported that the two paramilitary forces had on Monday exchanged fire near the Sonarhat border area, north of which lies Meghalaya, and to the south is Bangladesh’s Gowainghat upazila in Sylhet, citing a press release issued by Lieutenant Colonel Md Nazmul Haque of the BGB Sylhet Battalion.
“[The] BGB returned fire after India’s BSF fired shots in the Sonarhat border area of Sylhet’s Gowainghat upazila yesterday afternoon,” Dhaka-based newspaper, The Daily Star, reported.
A top BSF source told India Today Digital that “the Bangladeshi news reports are entirely fake and baseless”.
“No firing took place in that area. What was reported in Bangladeshi news outlets is fabricated and fake. Nothing that was reported actually happened on the ground. The situation on the ground remains as usual and normal. The BSF is ensuring that peace and security are maintained along India’s borders,” the BSF official told India Today Digital on condition of anonymity.
“Today, the BGB has put out this report in the media. Tomorrow, you’ll probably see them refuting the very same thing,” the source added.
India and Bangladesh share a 4,096-km-long border. It’s India’s longest land border with any country, stretching across the states of West Bengal, Assam, Meghalaya, Tripura and Mizoram.
The border with Bangladesh, apart from that with Pakistan, is guarded by the BSF. It’s India’s primary border-guarding paramilitary force tasked with securing the India-Bangladesh frontier, which is vulnerable to illegal infiltration, cross-border smuggling, and human trafficking.
The report of the two forces exchanging fire, which BSF sources refuted, comes amid an intensified crackdown on illegal immigration in India’s border states, reports of “push-ins” and the BSF accelerating fencing work along the frontier. Days after coming to power, the BJP-led West Bengal government said it was committed to handing over land to the BSF within 45 days for the erection of fencing along the Bangladesh border.
Source: India Today
