Islamabad: India’s ties with its neighbors have immensely suffered since Prime Minister Narendra Modi led Bharatiya Janata Party government came in power in New Delhi.
According to a research report over 1,200 Bangladeshis have been killed across border by Indian forces in the past two decades.
As per Bangladesh-based HR group Odhikar, 51 Bangladeshi nationals were killed by India’s Border Security Force in 2020 alone. Almost all unarmed Bangladeshi civilians are killed across the border by Indian forces as there is no single evidence that the Bangladeshis killed by Indian BSF possessed any firearms.
The report lamented that the killing of Bangladeshi civilians in lame excuses has turned into a habit of Indian border forces. BSF and other Indian forces are brazenly violating UN Basic Principles on the Use of Force and Firearms. The rising incidents of civilian killings along the border by India’s BSF have been a major cause of concern in Bangladesh. However, the Bangladesh’s concern about unlawful killing at the border has received little attention in New Delhi, the report noted.
Killings of Bangladeshis continued even after New Delhi’s repeated assurances that border deaths would be stopped, the report said and quoted Bangladesh-based HR activists to have said that the use of lethal weapons at the border has continued even in the time of Covid crisis.
The arrogant India has not bothered to even provide details of any BSF personnel prosecuted for killing Bangladeshi nationals despite the fact that the global rights bodies blamed India for turning a blind eye to extrajudicial killings of Bangladeshis by its forces.
Human Rights Watch and other global rights groups have urged India to investigate and prosecute its forces over killing of Bangladeshis across the border, the report concluded. Web Desk
