Shawdesh Desk:

The trend of killing Bangladeshi nationals on the Bangladesh-India border by the Indian Border Security Force is rising with at least six Bangladeshis being killed in the first three months of this year, while it was four in the same period in the past year.

The rise has been marked in quarterly report of the human rights group Ain O Salish Kendra released on Monday, mentioning that at least two Bangladeshi nationals were killed by the BSF every month on an average.

‘Six Bangladeshi citizens were killed and four were injured in firing and torture by the Indian BSF on the border,’ the report stated, adding that on the other hand, a Bangladeshi and a Rohingya resident of Bangladesh were killed by a mortar shell on the Bangladesh-Myanmar border.

The data is based on media reports, according to the report.

At least 1,236 Bangladeshis were killed and 1,145 injured in shootings by the Indian border force between 2000 and 2020, according to another rights organisation, Odhikar.

ASK data showed that 23 people were killed along the India-Bangladesh border between January 2021 and June 2022.

Bangladesh and India share a 4,096-kilometre-long international border, the fifth-longest land border in the world, comprising 262km with the Indian state of Assam, 856km with Tripura, 318km with Mizoram, 443km with Meghalaya, and 2,217km with West Bengal.

Monday’s ASK report also said that at least 35 people have died in prison in the last three months.

Among them, 14 are convicted and 21 are under trial, the report said.

The data showed that miscreants have attacked 13 houses of the Hindu community along with two business establishments in 20 incidents in the last three months.

Besides, 15 idols were vandalised while a Buddhist temple was set on fire.

The ASK report also said that at least 81 journalists have faced torture, harassment, threats, lawsuits and obstacles in their professional work in the last three months.

The quarterly report also said that 17 people were killed in lynching.

Among them, nine people were killed in the Dhaka division, five in the Rajshahi division, and one each in the Chittagong, Khulna, and Sylhet divisions.

At least 325 children have been subjected to various forms of torture and murder in different parts of the country in the last three months.

Among them, 139 children were killed and one boy was killed after rape, the report said.

At least 27 children committed suicide during this time, while 32 bodies of children have been recovered from different places.

It also reported that the incidents of human rights violations such as deaths in custody, killings along the border areas, harassment of journalists and restrictions on freedom of expression continue.

Establishing rule of law and accountability is essential to prevent human rights violations, it said, adding that otherwise, a culture of impunity is established and human rights violations continue to escalate.