Shawdesh Desk:

The increasing shooting deaths of Bangladeshi nationals at the hands of the Indian Border Security Force on the international border have left rights campaigners in both countries concerned and frustrated.

The recent incidents showed that the BSF bullets pierced the upper parts of the victims’ bodies. Neither of the counties has carried out any joint or separate investigation into the incidents yet.

Rights group Ain O Salish Kendra said that the BSF killed six Bangladeshis in the first three months of the year, despite renewed promises from the top leadership of the Indian border force in Dhaka in early March.

On April 2, Saiful Islam, 30, of Gomastapur upazila under Chapainawabganj district, was shot dead.

Robiul Islam, brother of the deceased, told New Age that Saiful was shot once from behind, and the bullet pierced through his chest.

On Friday, the Indian border force shot dead another 30-year-old Bangladeshi farmer, Abul Kalam Dukhu, along the Patgram border area of northern Lalmonirhat district.

‘One bullet has pierced through his left chest,’ said Patgram police station assistant sub-inspector Shahanur Rahman.

BGB director general Major General Mohammad Ashrafuzzaman Siddiqui told New Age on Sunday that all the death incidents occurred within the Indian territory from the zero line—starting from a few hundred metres to even a few kilometres inside India.

‘Despite the killing happening inside India, we send strong protest notes in every case and organise flag meetings,’ he said.

In the 54th director general-level border conference in Dhaka in March, the BGB chief urged his Indian counterpart to adopt ‘necessary measures’ to reduce the border killings to zero, considering the ‘sound bilateral relation’ between the two neighbours.

In response, the Indian Border Security Force director general, Nitin Agrawal, has renewed his promise to bring down the number of shooting deaths or injuries of Bangladeshi civilians along their shared border to zero.

The data from the rights group ASK, however, shows that three more Bangladeshis were killed in April alone.

‘The continuous reports of shooting incidents are frustrating us,’ said Kamal Uddin Ahmed, the chairman of Bangladesh’s National Human Rights Commission.

‘We have not heard of such incidents with Pakistan or other borders of [India].’

Kirity Roy, secretary of Manabadhikar Surakkha Mancha, better known as MASUM, a West Bengal-based human rights organisation, vented his anger over the increasing number of border killings.

‘It’s a bloodied border between two countries. Often killings happen under the pretext of self-defence, which is not right,’ he said, adding, ‘In the Indian  Constitution, Article 21 ensures the right to life, but it is systematically violated by the BSF with impunity.’

‘Whatever the Indian government commits is disregarded by the government employees, and the government stands like deaf and blind.’

Kirity added that the Indian NHRC is also day by day becoming a ‘stooge’ and oblivious to its mandate.

Mizanur Rahman, a former chairman of the NHRC who used to teach law at Dhaka University, said on Monday that the border killings had been affecting people-to-people relations between the two countries. He said that the killing must be stopped.

The trend of killing Bangladeshis by the Indian Border Security Force is rising, with at least six Bangladeshis being killed in the first three months of this year, while four people were killed in the same period in 2023.

Rights group Ain O Salish Kendra documented that 30 Bangladeshis were killed in the hands of the Indian BSF alone in 2023, while the number was 23, including 16 shooting deaths, in 2022, and 17, including 16 shooting deaths, in 2021.

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.

Home minister Asaduzzaman Khan could not be reached for his comment.

In March, the minister urged a BSF delegation led by Nitin Agrawal to bring civilian killings on the border to zero and use non-lethal weapons to this end.

Bangladesh and India share a 4,100-kilometre-long international border, the fifth-longest land border in the world.