New Delhi: Union home minister Rajnath Singh, who left for a three-day visit to Bangladesh on Thursday, will hold wide ranging discussions with Dhaka’s security establishment on issues like enhanced co-operation on dealing with increasing threat of terror, Rohingya refugees, influx of illegal migrant and smuggling of counterfeit Indian currency among others.
During the visit, Mr Singh is also expected to meet Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina. On eve of his departure, the home minister tweeted, “Relationship between India and Bangladesh is anchored in history, culture, language and shared values of democracy. India attaches great significance to ties with Bangladesh.’’
“India and Bangladesh have made notable progress in transforming land and maritime boundaries into zones of peace and tranquillity. Looking forward to strengthen the bilateral relations between both the countries on the basis of friendship and trust,” he further said on the social media platform.
The main issues that Mr Singh will take up with his Bangladeshi counterpart Asaduzzaman Khan will to further enhance counter terrorism mechanism between the two countries and a comprehensive unified strategy to deal with increasing cases of radicalisation of youths by terror outfits particularly using the social media.
Senior security and intelligence officials are accompanying the home minister on this key visit. Both sides will review the present strategy on dealing with illegal migration, smuggling of cattle, arms and ammunition, narcotics and contraband items from the porous Indo-Bangla border.
India will strongly take up the increasing cases of fake Indian currency being pumped in by ISI operatives from Bangladesh.
Till March this year fake currency worth Rs 13.66 lakh has been seized by security agencies while last year a total of Rs 68.96 lakh fake currency was confiscated.
Incidents of attacks on Indian border guarding personnel of BSF will also be discussed as two BSF personnel were killed while 122 other were injured by criminal gangs operating in the border areas.
Sources said Dhaka is likely to flag the issue of its nationals being killed in cross-border firing by BSF as well as smuggling of narcotics into their country from the Indian side. India has a 4,096-km-long border with Bangladesh large parts of which remain porous thus resulting in a number of security related issues. On its part the Home Ministry has already initiated a project to seal the entire Indo-Bangladesh border in the next couple of years.
