BSF: Insurgent camps on Bangla soil reduced to zero

New Delhi: In a major development reported after decades of cross-border insurgency along India’s eastern frontier, the BSF has said that camps and hideouts of Indian Insurgent Groups (IIGs) across the country’s frontier on the Bangladeshi soil have been reduced to “almost zero”.

The director general of the Border Security Force, K.K. Sharma, told PTI that this first-time achievement was the result of an excellent and positive cooperation between the border guarding forces of the two countries over the past few years.

The BSF’s counterpart in the neighbouring country is the Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB).

“Whenever we have information about exodus or insurgents of the northeastern states in Bangladesh, we share the information and immediate raids are undertaken (by the BGB). As a result, the number of training places and hideouts of these insurgents have been reduced to almost zero,” the BSF DG said.

If there are some still existing, they are of a floating nature, Mr Sharma said, indicating that no permanent camps of these banned terror and insurgent groups now exist on the Bangladeshi side. “I congratulate our counterparts (BGB),” the DG said. The development is being seen as a major victory of the security forces over the insurgency and terrorism situation along the Bangladesh border in the northeast.

For the past so many years and decades, the BSF used to hand over a list of IIGs and terror groups to the BGB during the DG-level talks seeking action against them, a senior officer said requesting anonymity.

“The numbers of these IIGs used to be 150-200 everytime a list was handed over to the Bangladeshi side. That situation has now changed and the IIGs are now on the run, without being able to stay put at a place on the other side for long,” the officer said.