DHAKA: India and Bangladesh on Tuesday agreed to share information on militants as home secretaries of the two neighbours concluded their talks here reviewing internal security and other cross-border issues.
“They (India) assured us of providing information immediately if they get any information on militancy. We can eliminate terrorism and insurgency through bilateral understanding and intelligence sharing,” Bangladeshi home secretary Mozammel Haque Khan said here after talks with his Indian counterpart Rajiv Mehrishi.
Khan said the issue of Bangladeshi nationals being detained by Indian border forces was a major issue of the talks while “both the countries have agreed to reduce such incidents to zero figure”.
“For this we (both Bangladesh and India) need to educate our people so that they do not cross the borders and abide by all international regulations in this regard. This would also ease the task of BGB and BSF and stop such killings,” Haque said. He said cross-border drug smuggling was another major issue of the talks and “being a non-narcotics producing country Bangladesh sought Indian cooperation in this regard”. “Indian authorities have assured us of whole hearted cooperation in this regard,” Khan said.
Officials familiar with the meeting said the Indian side earlier raised the issues of the influx of fake Indian currency, cattle smuggling, and illegal infiltration and sought Bangladesh’s cooperation to completely stop these.
Official talks between the two home ministries come less than a week after extradition of separatist ULFA leader Anup Chetia from Bangladesh and subsequent deportation of one of Bangladesh’s most wanted criminals, Nur Hossain, from India.
The officials said India thanked Bangladesh for deporting Chetia and asked for extradition of other Indian criminals from the country.
The two secretaries met a day after the Joint Working Group of Indian and Bangladesh home ministries reviewed internal security and cross-border issues.
Both the delegations comprised representatives of the paramilitary border forces, police, customs and foreign offices of the two countries.