Killing of Bangladeshis along border area shameful for India: Momen

Condemning the killings of Bangladeshi citizens along the India borders, Foreign Minister Dr AK Abdul Momen said today, it is "shameful" for the neighbouring country.

"Such killings are tragic for us and also shameful for India even after having several bilateral verbal decisions to refrain from using lethal weapons on the borders," the minister said while talking to the media at his ministry on Sunday.

The press briefing was organised on the occasion of the 21st meeting of the Council of Ministers of the Indian Ocean Rim Association (IORA) to be held on 15-17 November in Dhaka, both in person and virtually.

Two Bangladeshi nationals were reportedly shot dead by Indian Border Security Force (BSF) on Kaliganj border in Lalmonirhat on 12 November.

Earlier on 3 November, two more Bangladeshi youths were found dead at Dona's no-man's land border area in Kanaighat, Sylhet.

The year 2020 witnessed the highest number of killings of Bangladesh nationals along the border by the Indian border force, in the last 10 years.

At least 45 Bangladeshi citizens were either shot dead or tortured to death by the BSF in the border areas from January to December last year.

On 11 July, 2019, Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal told the Parliament that the number of border killings by the BSF was 66 in 2009, 55 in 2010, 24 each in 2011 and 2012, 18 in 2013, 24 again in 2014, 38 in 2015, 25 in 2016, 17 in 2017, and only three in 2018.

The killings continued on border areas even after Delhi's repeated assurance that border deaths would be brought down to zero.