BSF stops 250 Bangladeshi Hindus at Agartala border

online Desk :   Around 250 Bangladeshi nationals, who tried to enter Tripura on Saturday returned back from the border, Indian news agency IANS reported from Agartala on Saturday evening quoting police.

According to the IANS report, these Bangladeshi Hindu tribals were evicted from their habitation by the forest guards of that country.

“After a flag meeting between the officials of Border Security Force and Border Guards Bangladesh, the latter took these Bangladeshis back from the border to provide rehabilitation in their villages,” Khowai district police chief Jayanta Chakraborty told IANS over phone.

The Khowai district administration provided these Bangladeshi nationals food and other essentials during the day, said the report.

“Around 250 people, including women and children, tried to enter western Tripura on Saturday morning but the BSF thwarted their attempt,” Jayanta Chakraborty said.

“Bangladesh forest guards had destroyed the homes of these people and evicted them from forest lands at Chunarughat in eastern Bangladesh late on Friday. These people are Hindu tribals who took shelter along the Indian border,” Jayanta Chakraborty told the news agency.

The Indian police officials said that due to border fencing and alertness of the BSF troopers, the Bangladeshis could not enter Tripura’s Champahowar village under Khowai district, around 100 km west of Agartala, said the report.

The IANS reported that BSF sources said they communicated the matter to Border Guards Bangladesh and a flag meeting between the senior officials of the two forces was held in the afternoon.

Meanwhile, according to the report, Union Home Ministry’s Border Management Secretary Susheel Kumar, who arrived Agartala on Friday on a three-day visit to Tripura, held a meeting with Tripura chief secretary Yashpal Singh, senior officials of the BSF, district magistrates and collectors of different bordering districts besides senior state government officials to review the various aspects of the India-Bangladesh border.