DHAKA, 7 May — Indian border guards killed two civilian Bangladeshis last week, despite efforts by the neighbors to calm their recent bloody border fighting.
The shootings took place in separate incidents on Friday and Saturday in the Jakiganj frontier area, the Daily Jugantor and Daily Star newspapers said.
Selim Ahmed, 35, of Sultanpur village had gone to visit his relatives in adjoining Karimganj district of India two days ago. He was shot dead by Border Security Force men at Kushiyarchar while returning home early Thursday morning. Two days later, Amin Ali, 35 of Dighali village died when BSF soldiers opened fire on an Indian who had intruded into Bangladeshi territory to retrieve his buffaloes, the newspapers said.
The bodies were taken away by the BSF and a meeting had been scheduled to turn them over to the Bangladesh Rifles (BDR), the reports said.
A local journalist at the scene of the shootings in northeastern Sylhet district confirmed the reports by telephone. There was no official confirmation of the killings.
The reports came amid a flurry of diplomatic activity between the neighbors to calm their border after the worst skirmish in 30 years last month left 16 BSF and three BDR soldiers dead. However, Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee yesterday blamed political rivalry ahead of crucial polls in Bangladesh for the fighting.
“The border skirmish was unfortunate and was probably aimed at creating some tension and confusion ahead of the general elections in Bangladesh,” Vajpayee said in a local campaign speech in northeastern Assam state.
Bangladeshi Prime Minister Hasina Wajed talked with Vajpayee days after the fighting, but put off a plan to visit New Delhi later this month on her way back home from a trip to Brussels.
Dhaka has accepted an invitation to send an expert team to New Delhi to discuss the outstanding border issues later this month.
In a separate development, police arrested a politician’s two brothers and seized his pet deer apparently to force him to come out of hiding and face trial for allegedly assaulting a journalist in southeastern Bangladesh.
Nearly 30 policemen raided the home of Mamunur Rashid Mamum, a powerful member of Hasina’s Awami League party, in the port city of Chittagong on Saturday. Mamum’s brothers were arrested for allegedly violating a wildlife act by keeping two deer in captivity, an offense in Bangladesh, police officer Rashidul Alam said in a telephone interview.
“Our main aim is to draw him out of hiding,” Alam said. “When we saw two rare species of animals, we seized them and arrested two of his brothers who were there,” Alam said. Mamum’s father, Abdul Mannan, fled on seeing police.
The government has announced a cash reward of 100,000 takas ($5,400) to anyone providing information leading to Mamum’s arrest.
The Dhaka-based Bangladesh Center for Development Journalism and Communication has described the past year as “a year of agony for reporters and press photographers.”
Its report, released earlier this month, said two journalists were killed last year and another this year for writing against criminal gangs and influential “people who walk the corridors of power.”
