BSF kills 403 Bangladeshis in 9 yrs: Odhikar

The Indian Border Security Force (BSF) killed a total of 403 Bangladeshi nationals along the India-Bangladesh border in past nine years, according to human rights organisation Odhikar.

The Bangladesh-based organisation said this on Friday issuing a statement marking the seventh anniversary of the killing of Bangladeshi girl Felani by BSF.

In the statement, Odhikar said that the 403 Bangladeshi citizens were killed by the BSF between 2009 and 2017.

Among them, some 269 were gunned down, another 109 were tortured to death and 25 were killed by other means. Furthermore, 593 Bangladeshis were injured.

Among the injured, 337 were shot, 219 were tortured and 37 were injured in different ways. A further 468 persons were abducted by BSF personnel during this period.

On 7 January 2011, BSF members of the Indian Border Security Force (BSF) shot dead Felani Khatun, as she was crossing the India-Bangladesh border into Bangladesh. Her body was left hanging from the barbed wire fence of the border.

To date, BSF member Amiya Ghosh, who was involved in the killing and his superior officers, have not been convicted. The adjudication of Felani’s killing was held in BSF’s own court, General Security Forces Court (GSFC), where the accused Amiya Ghosh was not found guilty.

Odhikar in its statement said Felani’s killing was a brutal example of the aggression of the Indian government towards Bangladesh over the past decades.

The indiscriminate killing and torturing of Bangladeshi nationals, regardless of age, is nothing new to the BSF, the statement added. 

BSF tortured school student Hasnat Halsham Inu, 15, to death in 2010 while another student Hasanuzzaman, 16, was shot dead in 2015.

In 2017, BSF members shot and killed two school students, Sohel Rana and Harun-ur Rashid.

Odhikar condemned the killing and torturing of Bangladeshi citizens, including Felani, in the hands of BSF, and all incidents of human rights violations and political and economical aggression of the Indian government.

Citing reports, the rights organisation said every year many Bangladeshi citizens are killed and injured either by being shot or tortured by BSF along the Bangladesh-India border.

On many occasions, the statement said, BSF members attacked and robbed Bangladeshi people by violating the sovereignty of Bangladesh and illegally trespassing onto Bangladesh territory.

According to the statement, the state government of Assam has reportedly taken an initiative to evict Bangla-speaking Indian-Muslim citizens on the pretext of identifying illegal migrants in Assam.

It added the India's ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) formed the local government in Assam through provincial elections in 2016.

This newly elected state government of Assam is trying to push the Bangla-speaking Indian-Muslim citizens towards Bangladesh, whose predecessors came to Assam region before 24 March 1971.

The statement said the rights organisation believes that an independent and sovereign state can never accept such aggression and human rights violations perpetrated on its citizens and on its soil by another state.

It also said the international community needs to raise concerns regarding these issues, otherwise these aggressive activities may destabilise Bangladesh; and such destabilisation might spread through South Asia.