A border too far for Bangladesh
By Syed Tashfin Chowdhury
DHAKA - Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's government last week showed its determination to maintain improved ties with New Delhi, defying public anger over the torture of a young Bangladeshi man by Indian border guards while signing with India a US$1.5 billion power plant deal that threatens Bangladesh's most famous natural asset, the Sundarbans.
Even as the furor continued over the videoed treatment of 22-year-old Habibur Rahman by Indian Border Security Force (BSF) personnel, who stripped him, lashed his arms to a bamboo pole across his back, and thrashed him about the body and on the soles of his feet, the BSF on Friday handed over the body of another young man, Saiful Islam, 25. Saiful's elder brother said the BSF had tortured his sibling with sharp weapons before killing him. The BSF denied the claim, saying they had recovered the body at Lalpur, about two kilometers inside India the Bangladesh border, the Daily Star reported on Sunday.
The BSF's savage treatment of Bangladeshis, often related to bribes for smuggling cattle, has been a long-running sore, but the video of the torture of Habibur Rahman, made public in mid-January, has increased demands for an end to the brutality. Habibur told Asia Times Online that after an hour of torture in the end-of-year attack, and before losing consciousness, the BSF members discussed bathing him "in petrol and then putting him on fire".
The Bangladesh government is "not worried about these incidents", Syed Ashraful Islam, general secretary of Hasina's ruling Awami League and minister for local government, rural development and cooperatives, told the press on January 19 after the video clip became public. Days later, Bangladesh Finance Minister A M A Muhith and Indian Power Secretary P Uma Shankar attended the signing of the power plant agreement in Dhaka.
The Indian government's reaction to the video of the border thrashing was immediate once it was made public. Eight BSF jawans were suspended on January 18 for their alleged role in the incident and the next day the government said a full investigation had been ordered. The Indian media also reacted angrily to the behavior of the country's border guards. The Hindu urged an "unreserved apology" to Bangladesh for the "brutal conduct" of BSF personnel.
Yet it was not until January 23, as public anger rose, that Bangladesh Prime Minister Hasina told the Foreign and Home Affairs ministries to take up the issue with the Indian side. The next day, State Minister for Home Affairs Shamsul Haque said the Bangladesh Border Guards were on "high alert" and had been asked to "take steps for a meeting with BSF at the director-general level in February, before its scheduled meeting in March".
More than 900 Bangladeshis and 164 Indians were killed along the border by the BSF between 2000 to 2010, according to New York-based Human Rights Watch.
The issue looked set to improve after India and Bangladesh agreed last March to avoid using lethal weapons in dealing with illegal activities on the frontier, and in July Indian Home Minister Palaniappan Chidambaram said India had ordered the BSF not to shoot, except in self-defense.
Yet between April and December, 16 Bangladeshis were shot dead by the BSF, seven others were tortured and three more were killed through other methods. In January alone, two Bangladeshis were killed by the BSF, nine were injured and three were allegedly abducted, according to Dhaka-based human rights organization Odhikar.
The body of one, 22-year old Saddam Hossain Babu, was recovered from a river bank on January 24 with torture marks on his hands and neck. He had been picked up by BSF personnel three weeks earlier. Last year, 31 Bangladeshis were reportedly killed, 61 injured and 23 abducted.
Habibur, a day laborer, told Asia Times Online he had earlier crossed into India after bribing Bangladeshi border guards 20 takas (US$2.33) to get work as a cattle smuggler. Due to a lack of cattle-handling experience, he failed to get a job and was returning to Bangladesh when Indian border guards picked him up late on December 9 and took him to a BSF camp. Out of cash, he was unable to pay any bribes. "They beat me for half an hour ... as I did not have any money or mobile phone," he said.
"Around dawn on December 10, they again asked for money from me," said Habibur, who at the start of the video can be seen tied to a stake on the far left of the picture as cattle and their drivers pass through.
"As I could not pay up, they stripped me naked, tied my hands and legs, jumped on my chest and beat me with thick sticks," said Habibur. "Some BSF personnel were witnessing my torture while sipping tea. Another recorded the whole incident through a mobile camera.
"They probably thought I was dead after I fainted, as they threw my naked body into a mustard field, from where other Bangladeshi cattle-runners rescued me and brought me back to Khanpur in Bangladesh."
The "horrific images of torture ... show what rights groups have long documented: that India's Border Security Force is out of control," Human Rights Watch South Asia director Meenakshi Ganguly said. "The Indian government is well aware of killings and torture at the border, but has never prosecuted the troops responsible. This video provides a clear test case of whether the security forces are above the law in India.
"Whenever offenses attributed to the BSF occur, its leadership insists that there will be an internal inquiry and action taken," said Ganguly. "But secret proceedings and suspensions or transfers won't end the abuses. Torture is a serious crime that should be prosecuted in the courts."
Much of the BSF violence is against smugglers of cattle, whose export is banned by India. While the present Bangladeshi government is unwilling to strain ties with India, international trade experts and cattle traders in Bangladesh say it also does not want to disturb trade involving influential smuggling rings that has prevailed for over three decades.
"Both governments are subtly tolerant particularly toward cattle smuggling," Manjur Ahmed, adviser to the Federation of Bangladesh Chambers of Commerce (FBCC) and Industry, told Asia Times Online.
The trade is good for Indian traders as smuggled cattle is sold "at a price 35% to 40% more in Bangladesh than in India", said Shahin Miaji, a cattle trader and butcher shop owner in Dhaka. It is also good business for the government. Shahin estimated that nearly 65% of Bangladesh's total cattle supply, ranging between 20,000 to 25,000 cattle daily, comes from largely Hindu India, where the demand for beef is negligible. Some media reports in Bangladesh say cattle worth $81,000 is smuggled into Bangladesh daily.
Once the cattle are brought in from India, the smuggler tells Bangladesh customs officials that he found them near the border and that they were probably trafficked. The customs officer takes the cattle, whatever the number may be, then lets the "good Samaritan" buy them back at 500 takas (US$6) per cow - making them legal livestock.
Akbar Ali Khan, a former chairman of the National Board of Revenue chairman, last week said the payment system was set up by the Bangladesh government in 1993 so it could take in revenues from already established smuggling networks.
Once the cattle are sold in the markets, the money they garner is channeled back to Indian businessmen through the illegal hundi, foreign currency payment system, which itself is nourished by gold smuggled from Bangladesh to India.
"Drugs, phensedyl and light arms are also smuggled into Bangladesh across the border. We hardly hear of the BGB [Border Guard Bangladesh] apprehending these smugglers," said Ahmed of the FBCC.
Illegal trade has long been "accommodated" and "the killings and torture of Bangladesh cattle fetchers at the border are actually due to botched negotiations between the cattle trafficking rings and the BSF," he said.
The treatment of Habibur was made public through an 11-minute video, apparently taken by a BSF member and released, according to some reports, as a cautionary tale to other smugglers. The video was posted on YouTube by Banglar Manabadhikar Suraksha Mancha, a Kolkata-based non-governmental organization.
India is Bangladesh's second-most important trading partner, trailing only the European Union, but issues arising from their 4,000 kilometer common border have blighted their relationship, most recently involving a brief armed conflict in 2001.
Matters have recently improved, leading to a state visit to Bangladesh by Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh last September, when Premier Hasina signed a "Framework Agreement on Cooperation for Development between India and Bangladesh". The pact was seen to make important headway on issues such as shared water systems and cross-border trade.
Yet since then, concern in Bangladesh has grown that India seems prepared to press ahead unilaterally with construction of the Tipaimukh dam, which may threaten the livelihood of millions of Bangladeshis, and no progress is seen on implementation of border realignments intended to remove dozens of troublesome enclaves in both countries.
A $1 billion loan by India to Bangladesh under an August 2010 agreement remains virtually untapped. On January 16, the government in Dhaka said it planned to abandon eight of 21 projects planned under the loan due to "tough conditions".
Terms of the loan require Bangladesh to procure from India 85% of the goods, works and services involved in any project. Only one project, initiated by the Bangladesh Road Transport Corp, is going ahead smoothly, while 19 others are stuck due to procurement complications, the Financial Express reported.
Asia Times Online :: A border too far for Bangladesh
By Syed Tashfin Chowdhury
DHAKA - Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's government last week showed its determination to maintain improved ties with New Delhi, defying public anger over the torture of a young Bangladeshi man by Indian border guards while signing with India a US$1.5 billion power plant deal that threatens Bangladesh's most famous natural asset, the Sundarbans.
Even as the furor continued over the videoed treatment of 22-year-old Habibur Rahman by Indian Border Security Force (BSF) personnel, who stripped him, lashed his arms to a bamboo pole across his back, and thrashed him about the body and on the soles of his feet, the BSF on Friday handed over the body of another young man, Saiful Islam, 25. Saiful's elder brother said the BSF had tortured his sibling with sharp weapons before killing him. The BSF denied the claim, saying they had recovered the body at Lalpur, about two kilometers inside India the Bangladesh border, the Daily Star reported on Sunday.
The BSF's savage treatment of Bangladeshis, often related to bribes for smuggling cattle, has been a long-running sore, but the video of the torture of Habibur Rahman, made public in mid-January, has increased demands for an end to the brutality. Habibur told Asia Times Online that after an hour of torture in the end-of-year attack, and before losing consciousness, the BSF members discussed bathing him "in petrol and then putting him on fire".
The Bangladesh government is "not worried about these incidents", Syed Ashraful Islam, general secretary of Hasina's ruling Awami League and minister for local government, rural development and cooperatives, told the press on January 19 after the video clip became public. Days later, Bangladesh Finance Minister A M A Muhith and Indian Power Secretary P Uma Shankar attended the signing of the power plant agreement in Dhaka.
The Indian government's reaction to the video of the border thrashing was immediate once it was made public. Eight BSF jawans were suspended on January 18 for their alleged role in the incident and the next day the government said a full investigation had been ordered. The Indian media also reacted angrily to the behavior of the country's border guards. The Hindu urged an "unreserved apology" to Bangladesh for the "brutal conduct" of BSF personnel.
Yet it was not until January 23, as public anger rose, that Bangladesh Prime Minister Hasina told the Foreign and Home Affairs ministries to take up the issue with the Indian side. The next day, State Minister for Home Affairs Shamsul Haque said the Bangladesh Border Guards were on "high alert" and had been asked to "take steps for a meeting with BSF at the director-general level in February, before its scheduled meeting in March".
More than 900 Bangladeshis and 164 Indians were killed along the border by the BSF between 2000 to 2010, according to New York-based Human Rights Watch.
The issue looked set to improve after India and Bangladesh agreed last March to avoid using lethal weapons in dealing with illegal activities on the frontier, and in July Indian Home Minister Palaniappan Chidambaram said India had ordered the BSF not to shoot, except in self-defense.
Yet between April and December, 16 Bangladeshis were shot dead by the BSF, seven others were tortured and three more were killed through other methods. In January alone, two Bangladeshis were killed by the BSF, nine were injured and three were allegedly abducted, according to Dhaka-based human rights organization Odhikar.
The body of one, 22-year old Saddam Hossain Babu, was recovered from a river bank on January 24 with torture marks on his hands and neck. He had been picked up by BSF personnel three weeks earlier. Last year, 31 Bangladeshis were reportedly killed, 61 injured and 23 abducted.
Habibur, a day laborer, told Asia Times Online he had earlier crossed into India after bribing Bangladeshi border guards 20 takas (US$2.33) to get work as a cattle smuggler. Due to a lack of cattle-handling experience, he failed to get a job and was returning to Bangladesh when Indian border guards picked him up late on December 9 and took him to a BSF camp. Out of cash, he was unable to pay any bribes. "They beat me for half an hour ... as I did not have any money or mobile phone," he said.
"Around dawn on December 10, they again asked for money from me," said Habibur, who at the start of the video can be seen tied to a stake on the far left of the picture as cattle and their drivers pass through.
"As I could not pay up, they stripped me naked, tied my hands and legs, jumped on my chest and beat me with thick sticks," said Habibur. "Some BSF personnel were witnessing my torture while sipping tea. Another recorded the whole incident through a mobile camera.
"They probably thought I was dead after I fainted, as they threw my naked body into a mustard field, from where other Bangladeshi cattle-runners rescued me and brought me back to Khanpur in Bangladesh."
The "horrific images of torture ... show what rights groups have long documented: that India's Border Security Force is out of control," Human Rights Watch South Asia director Meenakshi Ganguly said. "The Indian government is well aware of killings and torture at the border, but has never prosecuted the troops responsible. This video provides a clear test case of whether the security forces are above the law in India.
"Whenever offenses attributed to the BSF occur, its leadership insists that there will be an internal inquiry and action taken," said Ganguly. "But secret proceedings and suspensions or transfers won't end the abuses. Torture is a serious crime that should be prosecuted in the courts."
Much of the BSF violence is against smugglers of cattle, whose export is banned by India. While the present Bangladeshi government is unwilling to strain ties with India, international trade experts and cattle traders in Bangladesh say it also does not want to disturb trade involving influential smuggling rings that has prevailed for over three decades.
"Both governments are subtly tolerant particularly toward cattle smuggling," Manjur Ahmed, adviser to the Federation of Bangladesh Chambers of Commerce (FBCC) and Industry, told Asia Times Online.
The trade is good for Indian traders as smuggled cattle is sold "at a price 35% to 40% more in Bangladesh than in India", said Shahin Miaji, a cattle trader and butcher shop owner in Dhaka. It is also good business for the government. Shahin estimated that nearly 65% of Bangladesh's total cattle supply, ranging between 20,000 to 25,000 cattle daily, comes from largely Hindu India, where the demand for beef is negligible. Some media reports in Bangladesh say cattle worth $81,000 is smuggled into Bangladesh daily.
Once the cattle are brought in from India, the smuggler tells Bangladesh customs officials that he found them near the border and that they were probably trafficked. The customs officer takes the cattle, whatever the number may be, then lets the "good Samaritan" buy them back at 500 takas (US$6) per cow - making them legal livestock.
Akbar Ali Khan, a former chairman of the National Board of Revenue chairman, last week said the payment system was set up by the Bangladesh government in 1993 so it could take in revenues from already established smuggling networks.
Once the cattle are sold in the markets, the money they garner is channeled back to Indian businessmen through the illegal hundi, foreign currency payment system, which itself is nourished by gold smuggled from Bangladesh to India.
"Drugs, phensedyl and light arms are also smuggled into Bangladesh across the border. We hardly hear of the BGB [Border Guard Bangladesh] apprehending these smugglers," said Ahmed of the FBCC.
Illegal trade has long been "accommodated" and "the killings and torture of Bangladesh cattle fetchers at the border are actually due to botched negotiations between the cattle trafficking rings and the BSF," he said.
The treatment of Habibur was made public through an 11-minute video, apparently taken by a BSF member and released, according to some reports, as a cautionary tale to other smugglers. The video was posted on YouTube by Banglar Manabadhikar Suraksha Mancha, a Kolkata-based non-governmental organization.
India is Bangladesh's second-most important trading partner, trailing only the European Union, but issues arising from their 4,000 kilometer common border have blighted their relationship, most recently involving a brief armed conflict in 2001.
Matters have recently improved, leading to a state visit to Bangladesh by Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh last September, when Premier Hasina signed a "Framework Agreement on Cooperation for Development between India and Bangladesh". The pact was seen to make important headway on issues such as shared water systems and cross-border trade.
Yet since then, concern in Bangladesh has grown that India seems prepared to press ahead unilaterally with construction of the Tipaimukh dam, which may threaten the livelihood of millions of Bangladeshis, and no progress is seen on implementation of border realignments intended to remove dozens of troublesome enclaves in both countries.
A $1 billion loan by India to Bangladesh under an August 2010 agreement remains virtually untapped. On January 16, the government in Dhaka said it planned to abandon eight of 21 projects planned under the loan due to "tough conditions".
Terms of the loan require Bangladesh to procure from India 85% of the goods, works and services involved in any project. Only one project, initiated by the Bangladesh Road Transport Corp, is going ahead smoothly, while 19 others are stuck due to procurement complications, the Financial Express reported.
Asia Times Online :: A border too far for Bangladesh
to Bangladeshi cattle traders( or smuggler, illegal migrant and terrorist)
