Indo-Bangladesh border talks begin - India News and Travel Times Provides India-centric and other News and Features

The six-day conference between the Directors General of Border Security Force (BSF) and Bangladesh Rifles (BDR) began at the BSF headquarters here today. Raman Shrivastav, BSF Director General, welcomed his counterpart, the BDR chief Major General Mainul Islam, who has come down with a 19-member Bangladesh delegation for border talks at the conference. The conference began with discussion on the developments related to the Joint Border Management Plan and issues related to maintenance of boundary pillars along Indo-Bangladesh border. Cross-border trafficking of illegal weapons and drugs are likely to be discussed in the ongoing meeting. The conference is also likely to discuss measures to be adopted to develop force-to-force relation. The nearly 4,096 kilometres long India-Bangladesh border is one of the most difficult to patrol owing to reasons of topography, riverine patches, dense forested hills, agricultural lands and human settlements. The porous nature of the border has led to numerous transborder problems including infiltration, smuggling, of arms and drugs, contraband goods, illegal movement of persons, and crimes such as kidnapping for ransom, cattle lifting, extortion etc. The bilateral mechanism to coordinate between forces of both the side would help to counter such problems.