India, Bangladesh Officials, Border Guards to Work Jointly

Aizawl, Jan 22 (IANS) The district administrations and border guards of India and Bangladesh would deal jointly with various border issues and crimes, officials said here Thursday.

District magistrates and other officials of Mizoram's two districts - Mamit and Lunglei -- met the deputy commissioners of Bangladesh's districts of Rangamati and Bandarban (under Chittagong division), and discussed border crimes, setting up of more border outposts (BOPs), erection of border fencing and better coordination between the district administrations of both sides.

"We would like to sort out local issues between us. The border related crimes and problems would be dealt with jointly," said Rangamati Deputy Commissioner Shamsul Arefin, who led a nine-member Bangladesh team to the meeting.

He told reporters: "Officials of the district administrations, Border Security Force and the Border Guards Bangladesh would work mutually to curb crime...and to resolve other problems."

An official of the Mizoram home department said that the district magistrates and other officials of Mizoram's Mamit and Lunglei districts told their Bangladeshi counterparts that northeast militants take shelter in Bangladesh territory, occasionally kidnapping people from Mizoram.

India and Bangladesh had decided to hold district magistrate-level meetings to resolve various issues.

District magistrates and other officials of Tripura's four districts -- Sipahijala, Gomti, South Tripura and Dhalai - met in Agartala Jan 9-10 with the deputy commissioners of Bangladesh's five districts of Comilla, Feni, Rangamati, Khagrachari and Chittagong.

They discussed border crimes, sharing waters of common rivers, setting up of more 'border haats' (markets), border fencing and better coordination between the district administrations of both sides.

Similar conferences would be held in the other northeastern states of Assam and Meghalaya to sort out border issues.

India is erecting a barbed wire fence and putting up floodlights along the 4,096-km India-Bangladesh border in West Bengal (2,216 km), Tripura (856 km), Assam (263 km), Meghalaya (443 km) and Mizoram (318 km) to check trans-border movement of militants and curb border crimes.

The mountainous terrain, dense forests and other hindrances make the unfenced borders between India's northeastern states and Bangladesh porous and vulnerable, letting illegal immigrants and intruders cross over without any hurdle.