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print versionStop killing with impunity on India Bangladesh border: A compilation of select commentary by sacw.net (January 2011)
1. India’s shoot-to-kill policy on the Bangladesh border
2. All BSF killings should be probed, prosecuted
3. Peaceful border requires more than mere expression of intent
4. Killings at the border
5. India, and its Border Security Force
6 Rough Passage
India’s shoot-to-kill policy on the Bangladesh border
Security officials openly admit that unarmed civilians trying to enter India illegally are being killed. Will the government act?
by Brad Adams
Do good fences make good neighbours? Not along the India-Bangladesh border. Here, India has almost finished building a 2,000km fence. Where once people on both sides were part of a greater Bengal, now India has put up a "keep out" sign to stop illegal immigration, smuggling and infiltration by anti-government militants.
This might seem unexceptional in a world increasingly hostile to migration. But to police the border, India’s Border Security Force (BSF), has carried out a shoot-to-kill policy – even on unarmed local villagers. The toll has been huge. Over the past 10 years Indian security forces have killed almost 1,000 people, mostly Bangladeshis, turning the border area into a south Asian killing fields. No one has been prosecuted for any of these killings, in spite of evidence in many cases that makes it clear the killings were in cold blood against unarmed and defenceless local residents.
Shockingly, some Indian officials endorse shooting people who attempt to cross the border illegally, even if they are unarmed. Almost as shocking is the lack of interest in these killings by foreign governments who claim to be concerned with human rights. A single killing by US law enforcement along the Mexican border makes headlines. The killing of large numbers of villagers by Indian forces has been almost entirely ignored.
The violence is routine and arbitrary. Alauddin Biswas described to Human Rights Watch the killing of his 24-year-old nephew, who was suspected of cattle rustling, by Indian border guards in March 2010. "The BSF had shot him while he was lying on his back. They shot him in the forehead. If he was running away, he would have been shot in the back. They just killed him." The BSF claimed self-defence, but no weapons were recovered.
Nazrul Islam, a Bangladeshi, was luckier. "At around 3am we decided to cross the Indian border," he said. He was headed to India to smuggle cows back to Bangladesh. "As soon as the BSF saw us, they started firing without warning." Islam was shot in his arm, but survived.
Some of the victims have been children. One father recounted how his sons were beaten by BSF officers. "The BSF personnel surrounded the boys and without giving any reason started beating them with rifle butts, kicking and slapping them. There were nine soldiers, and they beat my sons mercilessly. Even as the boys fell down, the BSF men continued to kick them ruthlessly on their chest and other sensitive organs."
The border has long been crossed routinely by local people for trade and commerce. It is also crossed by relatives and friends separated by a line arbitrarily drawn by the British during partition in 1947. As with the Mexican border in the United States, the border has become an emotive issue in Indian politics, as millions of Bangladeshis now live in India illegally. Many are exploited as cheap labour.
India has the right to impose border controls. But India does not have the right to use lethal force except where strictly necessary to protect life. Yet some Indian officials openly admit that unarmed civilians are being killed. The head of the BSF, Raman Srivastava, says that people should not feel sorry for the victims, claiming that since these individuals were illegally entering Indian territory, often at night, they were "not innocent" and therefore were a legitimate target.
Though India is a state with functional courts, he apparently believes the BSF can act as judge, jury and executioner. This approach also ignores the many victims, such as a 13-year-old named Abdur Rakib, who broke no law and was killed simply because he was near the fence. Sadly, Bangladeshi border officials have also suggested that such killings are acceptable if the victim was engaged in smuggling.
As the recent WikiLeaks report about endemic torture in Kashmir underscores, Indian soldiers and police routinely commit human rights violations without any consequences. Permission has to be granted by a senior Indian official for the police to even begin an investigation into a crime committed by a member of the security forces, such as the BSF. This rarely happens.
The response of various government officials to allegations of a shoot-to-kill policy has been confusing: we do shoot illegal border crossers since they are lawbreakers; we don’t shoot border crossers; we only shoot in self-defence; we never shoot to kill.
But there is some reason for hope. Under pressure, senior Indian officials have expressed revulsion at the behaviour of the BSF and have promised to send new orders to end the shoot-to-kill policy. They have committed to use nonviolent means to apprehend illegal border crossers or smugglers where they pose no risk to life. The question is whether this will be translated into action on the ground. Similar promises of "zero tolerance" for abuses have been made in Kashmir and elsewhere but have not been fulfilled.
As India’s economy has grown and foreign investors have flocked in, its human rights record has largely flown under the radar in recent years. But India is a growing world power with increasing influence. It should understand that its behaviour will come under increasing scrutiny. Routinely shooting poor, unarmed villagers is not how the world’s largest democracy should behave.
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Editorial
All BSF killings should be probed, prosecuted
THAT the Indian government has ‘instituted a court of inquiry’ to investigate the death of Felani, a 15-year-old girl who was shot by its Border Security Force after she had got entangled in the barbed-wire fence on the border in Kurigram and screamed, is indeed a positive development. When revealing the institution of the court of inquiry during a joint news briefing at the end of a two-day Bangladesh-India home-secretary-level meeting in the capital Dhaka on Thursday, the Indian home secretary, according to a report front-paged in New Age on Friday, also asserted that the ‘guilty will be punished’ and that New Delhi would pursue a ‘zero tolerance’ policy in respect of killing of any unarmed civilians on the border. Although encouraging, there are very few reasons to take such assurances on their face value; after all, New Delhi has made similar promises in the past but hardly followed these up with any effective actions. As it is inconceivable that the BSF has perpetrated atrocities on the border beyond the knowledge of the Indian government, its inaction remains open to be construed as being indulgence given to the trigger-happy border guards. Little wonder than that the killing of Bangladeshi civilians by the Indian border guards have continued unabated; according to the human rights organisation Odhikar, more than 1,000 Bangladeshis were killed by the BSF on the border in the past one decade, including 74 in 2010 alone.
What’s worse, there have been attempts by the BSF top brass to justify such killings on one tenuous ground or the other. For example, at the end of the director general-level meeting of the border guards of the two countries in Dhaka in September 2010, the BSF chief claimed that ‘most of them [people killed by the BSF] are Indian criminals and the rest are Bangladeshi criminals.’ Such a claim not only amounted to calling the Bangladesh government, which has persistently called for New Delhi’s effective interventions to prevent killings of ‘civilians’, a liar but tended to presuppose that the BSF had the right to play the role prosecutors, jurors and executioners all rolled into one.
Be that as it may, the Indian government’s acknowledgement that something is amiss on the border, which its decision to institute a court of inquiry tends to suggest, belated as it is though, is welcome nonetheless. That said, it needs to pointed out that such a move by New Delhi may have come about in the face of the huge uproar that Felani’s killing has caused not only in Bangladesh but also in India and beyond. While the rationale for the court of inquiry is understandable, there should be no doubt in anyone’s mind that the killings that the BSF has perpetrated over the years are nothing but extrajudicial murders. Hence, the Indian government needs to purview of the court of inquiry to the other killings that the BSF has committed on the border over the years; the perpetrators must be identified and punished decisively and demonstratively. Meanwhile, the Indian government is expected to make sure that no more killings of Bangladeshis by its border guards take place on the border.
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The Daily Star, January 22, 2011
Editorial
Bangladesh-India Secretary level meeting
Peaceful border requires more than mere expression of intent
The secretary level meeting between Bangladesh and India this time was held in the backdrop of border killings due to BSF firing, the most recent being that of a 15 year old girl on 7th January. The recently concluded meeting of the home secretaries had evinced keen interest among the media and political observers, in Bangladesh particularly, because of the deaths.
Regrettably, the otherwise peaceful nature of the Bangladesh-India border has been blemished by very unfortunate, and we feel avoidable, deaths of Bangladeshis at the hands of the BSF, as a result of firing as well as torture. We are happy to note the expression of commitment to bring down the killings to zero, as well as regret from the Indian side for the recent death, at the meeting. One hopes that this is not just another pledge of the many that Bangladesh has received from India in the last several years. We would like to see the articulation of intent transformed into action on ground, in keeping with earlier assurance of ’gun freeze’ in the border for one year.
It merits repetition that the Bangladesh-India border is not like any other border, and for very compelling reasons requires sensitivity in its management, a sensitivity which has been belied by the trigger happy attitude of the BSF. Unfortunately, border killings have to some extent overshadowed the otherwise harmonious relationship between the two countries.
Needless to say, Bangladesh-India relationship, after being in the doldrums for more than five years prior to 2009, has been revitalised after the Grand Alliance government’s assumption of office in January 2009. The relationship has taken a new trajectory, and the credit must be given to Sheikh Hasina’s government for this. There is a change of mindset about India in Bangladesh, an attitude that has sponsored a proactive action on matters related to India, on the part of the Bangladesh leadership.
In that positive mind frame, Bangladesh has acted timely to address the security concerns of India. Its counter-extremist actions, which have a bearing on India’s security too, is worth the mention. One would have liked to have seen Bangladesh’s security concern addressed in equal measure, particularly border killings.
If for India the border is a cause for concern, by the same token are the killings a highly sensitive matter for Bangladesh. So much so, that for every mile of progress made in respect of bilateral relationship in other sectors, we regress two miles with every death of Bangladeshis in the hands of the BSF.
As for other issues related to the border we are happy to note that the two countries have expressed the hope of reaching consensus on solving all the outstanding ones in a couple of months. That is indeed great news given that some of the major border issues have resisted resolution for a very long time. We are confident that those can be resolved if there is political will which, we have witnessed in the recent past, Bangladesh has never been lacking .
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The Daily Star, January 11, 2011
Editorial
Killings at the border
We express serious concern at its frequent occurence
The recent killing of two cattle traders and a teenage girl in separate incidents in the border area in the past few days is most unfortunate. While border guards on both sides have the responsibility of preventing cross-border crimes such as smuggling of illegal goods and human trafficking, this trigger-happy attitude, especially on the part of the Indian Border Security Force (BSF), has often proven irresponsible and ended in tragedy. The story of 15-year-old Felani is a case in point.
From flag meetings to director general-level conferences, all have been positive. Border guards and delegations from both countries have constantly agreed to improve relations between the two forces, strengthen border patrol and maintain a normal and peaceful atmosphere on the border. However, despite steady protests on the part of the Bangladesh side and continued reassurances from its Indian counterpart and higher authorities, the reality has been quite different, with frequent killings by the BSF occurring.
Rather than hasty firing, heightened and efficient security measures should be the way to catch criminals. As most cross-border movements of a dubious nature occur at night, floodlights and other sophisticated equipment should be set up for the job. Unprovoked and indiscriminate firing is not the solution. The Bangladesh Guideline for Border Authorities 1975 stipulates the duties of the border forces as authorised to arrest criminals and hand them over to the other side; this consideration and tolerance must be reciprocated. A Joint Record of Discussions was also signed by border guards of the two countries last year to ensure the exercise of restraint by both forces, in an attempt to prevent killing of innocent civilians on the border.
The profession of friendship between the two nations and their leaders is, unfortunately, not reflected in the border patrol activities, which have been the cause of several deaths as well as a constant, palpable tension in the border areas. The decisions taken at the highest levels must permeate the ground level in order to prevent deaths on the border as well as a deterioration of the amiable relationship between the two countries. Strengthened border patrol can only be achieved with communication and cooperation from both sides. In this case, India should be taking the first step, for, while policies have been friendly enough, practices are yet to prove as friendly on the ground. Meanwhile, peace on the border remains a promise pending.
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New Age, Monday December 10, 2010
India, and its Border Security Force
by Rahnuma Ahmed
Felani’s clothes got entangled in the barbed wire when she was crossing the Anantapur border in Kurigram. It was 6 in the morning, Friday, 7th January 2011. Felani was 15, she worked in Delhi and was returning home with her father after ten years. To get married. She screamed. The BSF shot her dead. They took away her body.
The fence is made of steel and concrete. Packed with razor wire, double-walled and 8-foot high, it is being built by the government of India on its border with Bangladesh. When completed, it promises to be larger than the United States-Mexico fence, Israel’s apartheid wall with Palestine, and the Berlin wall put together. It has been dubbed the Great Wall of India.
The fence is being constructed, with floodlighting in parts, to secure India’s borders against interests hostile to the country. To put in place systems that are able to “interdict†these hostile elements. They will include a suitable mix and class of various types of hi-tech electronic surveillance equipment such as night vision devices, handheld thermal imagers, battle field surveillance radars, direction finders, unattended ground sensors, high powered telescopes to act as a “force multiplier†for “effective†border management. According to its rulers, this is “vitally important for national security.â€
Seventy percent of fencing along the Bangladesh border has been completed. In reply to a question in the Rajya Sabha on November 10, 2010, the Indian state minister for home affairs said, fencing will be completed by March 2012. One estimate puts the project’s cost at ₤600 million.
The colonial boundary division between East Pakistan/Bangladesh and India, notes Willem van Schendel, had little to do with modern concepts of spatial rationality. It was anything but a straight line, snaking “through the countryside in a wacky zigzag pattern†showing no respect for history, cutting through innumerable geographical entities, for example, the ancient capital of Gaur. It was reflective of someone with an “excessively baroque mind†(The Bengal Borderland: Beyond state and nation in South Asia, 2005).
The fence divides and separates. Villages. Agricultural lands. Markets. Families. Communities. It cuts across mangrove-swamps in the southwest, forests and mountains in the northeast (Delwar Hussain, March 2, 2009). It divides villages. Everyday village-life must now submit to a tangle of bureaucracy as Indian Muslim law clerk, Maznu Rahman Mandal and his wife Ahmeda Khatun, a Bangladeshi, discovered after Ahmeda’s father died. To attend the latter’s funeral in the same village, Bhira, they would now have to get passports from Delhi, visas from Kolkata (Bidisha Bannerjee, December 20, 2010). It split up Fazlur Rehman’s family too, the fence snaked into their Panidhar village homestead, his younger brother who lived right next door, is now in another country (Time, February 5, 2009). Other border residents have had their homes split in two, the kitchen in one country, the bedroom in another.
To access one’s field, or markets, residents must now line up at long queues at the BSF border outposts, surrender their identity cards. They must submit to BSF’s regimen, which often means disregarding what the crop needs. As Mithoo Sheikh of Murshidabad says, “The BSF does not understand cultivation problems.†By the time we get to the field it is noon. Sometimes we get water only at night. But we have to stop working at 4pm, because they will not let us remain in the field. If we disobey, they beat us, they file false charges. (“Trigger Happy.†Excessive Use of Force by Indian Troops at the Bangladesh Border, Human Rights Watch, December 2010).
Felani was killed by the BSF at Kurigram border.
This lack of `understanding’ percolates to the topmost levels of both border forces. During an official visit to Bangladesh and talks between the BSF and the BDR (Bangladesh Rifles, recently renamed Border Guard Bangladesh) in September 2010, Raman Srivastava, director general of the BSF, in response to allegations that BSF troopers were killing innocent and unarmed Bangladeshi civilians said: “The deaths have occurred in Indian territory and mostly during night, so how can they be innocent?†Ideas reciprocated by the BDR chief Maj. Gen. Mainul Islam in March 2010, who, while explaining that there was a history of “people and cattle trafficking during darkness†said, “We should not be worried about such incidents [killings]…. We have discussed the matter and will ensure that no innocent people will be killed.â€
Abdur Rakib was catching fish in Dohalkhari lake, inside Bangladeshi territory. It was March 13, 2009. A witness saw a BSF soldier standing at the border, talking loudly. “It seemed that he wanted the boy to give him some free fish.†Heated argument, verbal abuse. “The BSF pointed a gun at the boy. The boy ran and the soldier started to shoot.†Two were injured. Rakib was shot in the chest. He died instantly. He was 13.
Smuggling, cattle rustling and human trafficking has increased in the border areas as poor farmers and landless people faced by population increases, poor irrigation, flooding, and continuous river erosion struggle to make ends meet. While both BSF and BGB accuse each other of corruption, the reality, says the recent Human Rights Watch report, is that some officials, border guards, and politicians on both sides are almost certainly involved in smuggling. It quotes a senior BSF official, “There are a lot of people involved, including our chaps. That is why only these farmers, with one or two cows are caught, not groups that ferry large consignments of cattle or drugs.â€
A culture of impunity prevails, says Kirity Roy, head of Manabadhikar Suraksha Mancha (Masum), a Kolkata-based human rights organisation. We have repeatedly approached the courts, the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC), the National Minorities Commission, the National Commission for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights. But none of the cases raised have been brought to a satisfactory conclusion. In some cases, family members appeared before the BSF court of inquiry but we, as the de facto complainant, were never summoned to appear or depose before any inquiry conducted by BSF. No verdicts have been made public.
An Indian Border Security Force (BSF) soldier looks at the body of a suspected intruder shot dead at the site of an alleged encounter on the India-Pakistan border at Mahwa, Atari some 50 kilometers (27 miles) west of Amritsar, India, Wednesday, March 4, 2009. The BSF claimed to have killed a Pakistani intruder, arrested another and seized heroin worth several million rupees in the international market after an exchange of fire early Wednesday. (AP Photo/Altaf Qadri)
Neither has BSF provided any details to Bangladeshi authorities of any BSF personnel having been prosecuted for human rights violation. Impunity is legally sanctioned as the BSF is exempt from criminal prosecution unless specific approval is granted by the Indian government. A new bill to prohibit torture is being considered by the Indian parliament, it includes legal impunity.
On April 22, 2009, when Rabindranath Mandal and his wife were returning to Bangladesh after having illegally gone to India for Rabindranath’s treatment, a BSF patrol team from Ghojadanga camp detained them. She was raped. Rabindranath tried to save her, they killed him. The following morning, the BSF jawans left her and her husband’s dead body at the Zero Line at Lakkhidari.
The reason for building the fence, said an Indian Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson, is the same as the United States’ Mexico fence. As Israel’s fence on the West Bank. To prevent illegal migration and terrorist infiltration.
But Rizwana Shamshad points out that the hysteria generated by the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) during the 1980s and 1990s—Bangladeshi Muslim `infiltration’ by the millions constitutes a serious strain on the national economy, it poses a threat to India’s stability and security, it represents a challenge to Indian sovereignty, demographic changes will soon lead to Bangladeshi citizens demanding a separate state from India—did not withstand investigation. A study carried out by the Centre for Study of Society and Secularism in 1995 revealed that the BJP-Shiv Sena allegations were not only an exaggeration, but a complete fabrication. Fears and insecurities had been deliberately whipped up to consolidate Hindutva ideology; migrants, it seemed, were more preoccupied with struggling to make a living. While the BJP-Shiv Sena had alleged that there were 300,000 illegal Bangladeshi migrants in Mumbai, they were able to detect and deport only 10,000 Bangladeshi migrants, when in power (1998-2004).
The numbers vary with each media or official report, writes Rizwana. A BJP National Executive meeting declared over 15 million (April 1992). Nearly 10 million, said former Union Home Minister Indrajit Gupta (May 6, 1997). The group of cabinet ministers (home, defence, external affairs, finance) set up by prime minister Vajpayee post-Kargil, reported 15 million (2000). The definitions, she adds, are prejudiced: Muslim migrants are described as `infiltrators.’ Hindu migrants as `refugees.’ Neither is there any mention of the Indian economy having benefited from cheap labour.
The HRW report notes, few killed by the BSF have ever been shown to have been involved in terrorism. In the cases investigated, alleged criminals were armed with nothing but sickles, sticks and knives, implements commonly carried by villagers. Nor do the dead bodies bear out BSF’s justification that they had fired in self-defense. Shots in the back indicate that the victims had been shot running away. Shots at close range signal they were probably killed in custody.
BSF kills Indian nationals too. In Indian territory. Basirun Bibi and her 6 month old grandson Ashique, May 2010. Atiur Rahman, March 2010. Shahjahan Gazi, November 2009. Noor Hossain, September 2009. Shyamsundar Mondal, August 2009. Sushanta Mondal, July 2009. Abdus Samad, May 2009. The imposition of informal curfews on both sides of the border at night, reportedly to prevent the accidental shooting of villagers, has not lessened the number of innocent people killed.
Beatings, torture, rape, killings. What could be the reason for such compulsively violent behaviour? According to the HRW report, it could have been caused by previous deployment in the Indo-Pakistan border in Kashmir, by “difficult and tense periods of duty.â€
However, checkpoints, curfews, hi-tech electronic surveillance equipment, harassment, intimidation, beatings, torture and sniper fire remind me of Gaza. Not surprising, given that once finished, the fence will “all but encircle Bangladesh†(Time, February 5, 2009).
The 1947 colonial border division was reflective of someone with an “excessively baroque mind.†Its brutal enforcement through fencing, through the deployment of trigger happy BSF soldiers, speak of a Nazi-state mentality.
Not too far-fetched given Israel and India’s “limitless relationship†(Military Ties Unlimited. India and Israel, New Age, January 18, 2010). This includes Israeli training of Indian commandos in urban warfare and counter-insurgency operations (in Kashmir), and proposals for offering the Border Security Forces specialised training.
Given Israel’s behaviour, which Auschwitz survivor, Hajo Meyer, likens to the Nazis. “I can write up an endless list of similarities between Nazi Germany and Israel.â€
Israel’s inability to learn to live with its neighbours is increasingly turning it into a “pariah state†(British MP). Its “paranoia†has been noted by Israelis themselves (Gideon Levy). That a similar future awaits India, is increasingly clear.
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The Telegraph, January 20 , 2011
Editorial
ROUGH PASSAGE
The body of a 15-year-old girl hanging from a barbed wire fence for hours is the latest symbol of the South Asian border tragedies. She was reportedly shot dead by India’s Border Security Force while trying to climb the fence and cross over to Bangladesh. Even as it reflects the unresolved border issues between two nations, the tragedy is also a brutal testimony of the modern State’s insensitivity to the value of human life. According to the estimate of one human rights group, 72 Bangladeshis were killed on the border during the past year. On the West Bengal stretch of the India-Bangladesh border alone, 900 Bangladeshis were killed in firing by the BSF over the last 10 years. In some cases, Indians were also killed by the Bangladesh Rifles. None of the victims was involved in acts of terror or some other serious crime against the State. Most were trespassers or involved in petty cross-border smuggling of illegal goods. It is a measure of the appalling indifference of the governments in New Delhi and Dhaka to such tragedies that nothing was done to stop them. Bangladesh has repeatedly raised the issue with India. But the lives — and deaths — of poor people are apparently too inconsequential for policymakers in New Delhi.
After a meeting in Dhaka, officials of the two countries have now decided that rubber bullets could better solve the problem. Any measure that stops such inhuman killings is welcome. Given the current improvement in India-Bangladesh ties, this is the right time to take such measures. New Delhi’s worries about terrorists infiltrating India through Bangladesh have not been unfounded. Islamist militants from Bangladesh were found to have been involved in several terrorist strikes in India. Militants from the Northeast used Bangladesh not only as corridors but also as shelters and sites for training camps. All this calls for constant vigil on the border. Sheikh Hasina Wajed’s government has done much to force the northeastern militants out of Bangladesh. It has also acted decisively against Islamist groups in the country. But the killings on the border should be stopped irrespective of other issues. If such deaths occur in times of peace, no wars are needed to breed hostility. They may cause enough damage to sour the public mood in Bangladesh. Winning the confidence of a neighbour is not about befriending just its government.
