Calm returns to Indo-Bangladesh border

Calm returns to Indo-Bangladesh border

GUWAHATI, India (AFP): The Indo-Bangladesh border was calm but
tense on Friday, after fresh firing overnight had threatened to
prolong the worst frontier skirmishes for 30 years which left 19
dead on both sides..

"There is a total ceasefire along the border," said Inspector
General V.K. Gaur, regional commander of the Border Security
Force (BSF) in northeast India.

One Bangladesh Rifles (BDR) soldier was killed in fresh
fighting late Thursday in the Boraibari frontier area, a BDR
official in Kurigram told AFP.

The official, who declined to be named, said there had been a
lull in firing since dawn on Friday ahead of a field meeting
between the two sides scheduled for 10:00 am (11 a.m. Jakarta
time) in Boraibari.

The meeting aims to secure the handover of the bodies of 11
Indian BSF guards killed on Wednesday, he said.

After several days of fighting, the two sides appeared to
agree Thursday on a mutual withdrawal to positions occupied
before the clashes.

But there was renewed mortar and automatic weapons firing
across the Bangladesh border with the northeastern Indian state
of Assam late on Thursday.

"There was very heavy firing first from the BDR and then the
BSF, which continued past midnight," said A.J. Baruah, police
chief of the Assamese border district of Dhubri.

"The border is now calm and fighting has since stopped,"
Baruah said.

BSF chief Gaur said the fresh clashes may have been triggered
by nervous border guards as they retreated to their respective
sides of the border.

In an agreed statement on Thursday, both governments expressed
regret at the loss of life and vowed to exercise restraint on the
normally peaceful border.

In Dhaka, foreign ministry officials, confirmed the start of
Friday's field meeting between local BDR and BSF commanders.
"The meeting is expected to continue for several hours," one
official said, quoted by the BSS news agency.

He added the BDR was expected to handover the bodies of five
BSF men, whose post-mortems were already done. The bodies of the
other BSF victims would be returned after the post-mortems.

Informed sources said the autopsies were done at a government
hospital in northern Mymensingh, from where the bodies would be
taken to the nearest frontier posts to be handed over.

The skirmishes followed a weekend clash in which Bangladesh
seized a BSF outpost and occupied Pyrdiwah village in India's
Meghalaya state.

In Bangladesh, where the village is known as Pudia, local
media reported the BDR had retreated from the area on Thursday.
Areas of the border have been in dispute since Bangladesh was
created from the former East Pakistan in 1971.

The row centers around what is known as "adverse possession
land" -- territory that after demarcation of the border should
have been settled one way or the other, but is being held by one
side while housing citizens of the other.

Indian newspapers on Friday stressed that heightened tensions
on the border benefited neither side and called for a calm
resolution of the unexpected flare-up.

"Restraint is the key to a solution. Anything else would
prolong a wholly unneccesary quarrel," said an editorial in the
Indian Express.

Most analysts agreed that upcoming elections in Bangladesh had
helped spark the spat, with rival parties looking to gain from
fanning nationalist sentiment.

"Whatever the rights and wrongs of the case, it will not take
long for chest-thumping patriots in this country to pick up the
strain," the Indian Express warned.

New Delhi views Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina Wajed
as the most India-friendly leader Bangladesh has had for a long
time, but that mantle has caused her problems domestically.

"It is too early to predict how Bangladesh will manage the
highly emotive issue, given especially the constant refrain of
the opposition forces in that country about Hasina's presumptive
pro-India bias," The Hindu newspaper said.