Bangladesh to erect fence on border

With India looking to seal the IndoBangla border in Assam soon, a top Bangladeshi security commander has said his country has decided to erect a barbed wire fence along the border with India and Myanmar.

Director General of Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB), Bangladesh’s border guarding force, Major General Aziz Ahmad told a visiting group of Indian journalists here that his government has already approved a project to have a 282km road along the border it shares with India and Myanmar.

While India borders Bangladesh on three sides (4,096km), it shares a 271km border with Myamnar on its eastern flank.

“Our government, in principle, has agreed to have barbed wire fencing along the borders with India as well as Myanmar. In principle, it has also been decided to have link roads all along the border, like India is having which facilitates, BSF [Border Security Force] activities and those of the Myanmarese border guarding forces,” the BGB chief said while speaking via video-link at the BGB’s southwest region headquarters in Peelkhana, Dhaka.

Basic requirements

He said it was “unfortunate” that “two basic needs”, of having a barbed wire fence and roads, have not been developed on the Bangladeshi side until now. Ahmad said these projects are under “active consideration” of his government.

Ahmad made the remarks while replying to a question about Bangladesh’s response to India’s border sealing move. India recently said that IndoBangla border in Assam will be fully sealed by June 2017.

The BGB chief, who will lead a delegation to New Delhi for the bi-annual DG-level talks with their counterparts in BSF beginning October 30, also said he has given “clear instructions” to his men to crackdown on cross-border cattle smuggling.