India, Bangladesh DG-level border talks in Dhaka next month

New Delhi: India and Bangladesh will hold their bi-annual DG-level border talks in Dhaka next month to discuss issues related to curbing a variety of cross-frontier crimes and measures to create better coordination between their security forces and agencies, official sources said on Thursday.

A delegation led by Border Security Force (BSF) Director General Nitin Agrawal is slated to travel to Bangladesh for the meeting to be held between March 5-9, the sources told PTI.

This will be the 54th edition of the talks between the BSF and the Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB).

The discussions will be held at the BGB headquarters in Dhaka's Pilkhana.

BGB DG Maj Gen Mohammad Ashrafuzzaman Siddiqui will lead the Bangladeshi delegation. The talks will include officials from home and external affairs ministries, and anti-narcotics and other agencies of the two countries, they said.

Both sides are expected to deliberate on a number of issues related to border management like taking steps to stop incidents of assault and attacks on BSF personnel and civilians by Bangladeshi criminals, jointly checking crimes like smuggling of goods and fake Indian currency along this front, improving the coordinated border management plan (CBMP) and checking illegal construction activities along the border fence, among other things, a senior Union home ministry officer said.

The BSF guards the 4,096-km-long Indian front with Bangladesh on the country's eastern side.

The DG-level border talks were held annually between 1975 and 1992 but they were made bi-annual in 1993 with either side alternatively travelling to the national capitals of New Delhi and Dhaka.

The last talks were held in Delhi in June 2023.

The officer said the relations between the two countries and the forces are very good and this meeting is aimed at enhancing these ties.

According to official data, more than 3,342 Bangladeshi nationals were apprehended by the BSF along the border in 2023, the highest number in over the last six years.

A total of 77 BSF personnel were injured in attacks by Bangladeshi and Indian miscreants last year as compared to 43 and 64 such incidents in 2022 and 2021 respectively, the data showed.