DHAKA, 8 November 2004 — Bangladesh, in a major development, has formed vigilante groups comprising villagers along its border with India, to monitor attempts of the Indian Border Security Force (BSF) to push Bengali-speaking India Muslims into the country.
“The villagers volunteered their services to keep a night-long vigil on the border and inform the Bangladesh Rifles (BDR) troops,” said highly placed sources in Dhaka yesterday.
The administrations of the bordering districts helped form the vigilante groups, they said.
The vigilante groups foiled several attempts of the BSF for push-in in the last 24 hours, a report reaching Dhaka from Rangpur said yesterday.
The report said the BSF again started their abortive push-in bids along the northwestern frontiers on Saturday night creating a tense situation anew. Troops of Bangladesh Rifles (BDR) with the help of vigilante groups, patroling members of auxiliary security force called Ansar-Village Defense Party thwarted three major push-in attempts by the BSF along Lalmonirhat, Panchagarh and Joypurhat sectors, official sources said.
As the BSF has reportedly detained some 200 Bangla-speaking Indian Muslims in their camps and adjoining villages inside India to push them into the Bangladesh territory at any moment, the BDR side increased its alerted patrols along the over 1,590 km-long border from Kurigram to Rajshahi to foil the attempt, the sources said.
Sources in BDR, police, local administration and frontier people said the BSF troops of Jatrabari Company headquarters brought over 40 Indians to a barbed-wire fencing gate near the boundary pillar No. 735 opposite the Bhutipukur outpost of the BDR in Panchagarh to push them into the Bangladesh territory.
They BSF switched off the headlights of their several trucks and pick-up vans, opened the border gate and forced the victims to cross the border at gunpoint.
The victims, most of them women, girls and children, raised a hue and cry when the BSF troops became very angry with them.
Vigilante groups, patroling troops of BDR and Ansar-VDP men instantly created stiff resistance, used loudspeakers and warned the BSF not to push their citizens to avoid escalation of the situation further.
