Indian border guard chief remark outrage Bangladesh

BANGLADESH GOVERNMENT, as well as the rights groups are outraged after the Indian Border Security Force (BSF) chief said that it is not possible to stop border firing completely.

The BSF director general U.K. Bansal told the BBC on Tuesday that it is not possible to stop border firing completely and his Bangladesh counterpart Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB) chief Maj.Gen. Anwar Hossain disagrees and said on Thursday that killing at the border under any circumstances is not acceptable.

The remark is contrary to Indian government’s agreed policy and continues to maintain a shoot-at-sight policy for any Bangladeshi illegally crossing the international divide, foreign minister Dipu Moni told reporters on Thursday.

Last July, the Indian home affairs minister Palaniappan Chidambaram said the Indian guards will no longer shoot people crossing the porous border from Bangladesh. Instead the guards will use rubber bullets after warnings.

Two days after the anger is still being raged, two more Bangladeshi citizens on Thursday have been shot and wounded by BSF at Satkhira in south-east, lieutenant colonel Abu Bashir confirmed with the private wire service bdnews24.com.

Bangladesh Human Rights Commission chief Prof. Mizanur Rahman on Wednesday threatened to raise the issue at the United Nations Human Rights Council, unless BSF stops killing and torture of innocent Bangladeshis.

In December 2010, New York based Human Rights Watch in a report described the Indian border guards as "Trigger Happy" force and documented hundreds of extrajudicial killings, arbitrary detention, torture, and ill-treatment by the BSF.

In January 18, 2012, Indian news channel NDTV showed a disturbing video of what appears to be a group of BSF guards in uniform beating up a young Bangladeshi man ruthlessly near the Bangladesh border after he allegedly refused to give them a bribe. BSF top officers acknowledged that this incident took place and the perpetrators were fired.

The rights groups Odikhar and Ain Shalish Kendra (ASK) documents the killings on the border have denounced the border killings as extrajudicial murders.

The NGO’s stated that it is one of the most dangerous international borders, where an estimated 350 Bangladeshis and 165 Indians have been killed by Indian forces since 2006, since India began to fence the borders.

India in the east, shares 2,544 miles of porous and soft border with Bangladesh and have constructed walls with barbed wire, roughly 70 percent border with Bangladesh to stop illegal border crossing. The rest of the border is running across the delta's shifting rivers, which are unfenceable, but patrolled.

Livestock, food stuffs, gun-running and drug trade are regularly brought from India into Bangladesh. Illegal immigrants from Bangladesh cross into India to find jobs.

However, Gen. Hossain said on Thursday that the incident of killing at the border is on the decline in the last two months.

 

BY : SALEEM SAMAD.

 

India Upgrades Military to Match China

India has decided to buy 126 fighter jets from France, taken delivery of a nuclear-powered submarine from Russia and prepared for its first aircraft carrier in recent weeks as it modernizes its military to match China's.

India and China have had tensions since a 1962 border war, and New Delhi has watched with dismay in recent years as Beijing has increased its influence in the Indian Ocean.

China has financed the development of ports in Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Myanmar, and its recent effort to get access in the Seychelles prodded New Delhi to renew its own outreach to the Indian Ocean island state off western India.

With its recent purchases, running into tens of billions of dollars, India is finally working to counter what it sees as aggressive incursions into a region India has long dominated.

"The Indian military is strengthening its forces in preparation to fight a limited conflict along the disputed border, and is working to balance Chinese power projection in the Indian Ocean," James Clapper, the U.S. director of national intelligence, told a Senate committee last week.

India has created new infantry mountain divisions and plans to raise a strike corps aimed at countering aggression by China. Their border still has not been set despite 15 rounds of talks, and patrols frequently face off on the ground.

Analysts say that although the probability of a conflict between the two Asian giants is remote, a short, sharp conflict in the disputed Himalayan heights can't be ruled out.

"Over the last couple of years, the Chinese have been acting more and more aggressively in the political, diplomatic and military arena," said retired Brig. Gurmeet Kanwal, director of the Indian army-funded Centre for Land Warfare Studies in New Delhi.

Indian leaders and defense strategists have fretted as China modernized its forces and extended its military advantage over India. For some in India, countering China is taking precedence even over checking longtime rival Pakistan.

"Of late, there has been a realization (in India) that China is the real danger of the future," Kanwal said.

The drive to modernize Indian forces was long overdue as much of the equipment was obselete Soviet-era weapons, and the orders for fighter jets, naval frigates, helicopters and armaments have made India the world's largest importer of arms. The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute said India accounted for 9 percent of all the world's weapon imports in 2010, the latest year for which figures were available.

Last week's order of 126 combat aircraft, won by France's Dassault, followed a bitter battle by global jet manufacturers. The initial cost for the fighter jets is estimated as $11 billion, but on-board weaponry, technology transfers, maintenance, warranties and other costs are expected to almost double the price.

The Indian navy last week took command of a Russian Nerpa nuclear submarine, renamed INS Chakra-II, at the Russian port of Vladivostok, propelling India into an elite group of countries operating underwater nuclear-powered vessels. It joins the United States, France, Russia, Britain and China.

The Chakra-II, on lease for 10 years at a cost of nearly $1 billion, is expected to be inducted into the navy by March. Later this year, India is expected to take delivery of a retrofitted Soviet-built aircraft carrier.

In addition, six Scorpene subs being built in India under license from France in a $5 billion deal are expected to start going into service in 2015, three years behind schedule, said Defense Minister A.K. Antony. Labor problems and difficulties procuring needed technology have hampered the project, he told the Indian Parliament recently. Critics also blame India's sluggish bureaucracy for the delays.

"India's efforts at modernizing its forces have been very slow," said Rajeswari Pillai Rajagopalan, a defense analyst at the New Delhi-based Observer Research Foundation.

Some Indian military experts complain that the country is not doing enough to upgrade its forces to the level befitting the regional power it aspires to be.

"It's not only China that is rising. India is on the ascent too, and it's a trend that will continue for some decades," said retired Air Vice Marshal Kapil Kak at the Centre for Air Power Studies in New Delhi.

India may be worrying over China's overtures to its neighbors, but New Delhi is reaching out to the Southeast Asian and East Asian countries in Beijing's backyard as well.

India has struck a strategic partnership with Vietnam, including helping Hanoi beef up its defense capabilities. Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has been actively pursuing a "Look East" policy, engaging the leaders of South Korea, Japan, Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand, among others. The policy has resulted in a troupe of high-level visits to India, bolstering trade and economic cooperation.

Nowhere is the contest between China and India more evident than in Myanmar, where both of the energy-seeking Asian giants are caught in a race to gain access to the country's natural gas sources.

India has regularly conducted defense exercises with countries in the region. It is scheduled to host the navies of 14 Asian countries in maritime exercises later this week; the Chinese and Pakistani navies have not been invited.

And, while India is increasing its defense capabilities, China is doing the same, but faster, making it difficult for India to catch up. The Chinese government's military budget is the second largest in the world after the United States.

India has raised two mountain divisions of soldiers to add to its existing high-altitude troops. Around 36,000 soldiers and officers of the divisions have been posted in the remote northeast, not far from India's Arunachal Pradesh state, which China claims as part of its territory.

A proposal for a mountain strike corps is awaiting clearance by India's Cabinet, and an independent armored brigade for the mountain region also is in the works. India hopes to show it can strike deep beyond its neighbor's borders to serve as a deterrent for any Chinese aggression, Kanwal said.

"India is building up its capability for offensive operations in the mountains with a view to taking the fight into Chinese territory," Kanwal said.

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Mahatma Gandhi's enduring Bangladesh legacy

Jharna Dhara Chowdhury was eight when bloody communal riots between Muslims and Hindus broke out in late 1946 in southern Bangladesh - or East Bengal as it was known at that time.

Eyewitness accounts said villages were burnt to ashes and hundreds of thousands of people fled their homes.

Over a few weeks, thousands were killed and hundreds of women raped as mobs went on a rampage in the remote Noakhali region. 

Media reports described how thousands of minority Hindus were forced to convert to Islam and compelled to dress up like Muslims and eat beef, acts which contravene their religious traditions.

The Noakhali massacre, as it came to be known, took place about a year before the end of British rule in the subcontinent. 

'Destruction everywhere'

 

India and Pakistan were carved out of British India and East Bengal became part of Pakistan.

"Our house was burnt down and many of our relatives were killed. We fled to neighbouring Assam [in India] for safety," Ms Chowdhury said.

"On my way, I saw death and destruction everywhere," the social worker and eminent peace activist remembered. 

The brutality of the riots shocked Indian independence leader Mahatma Gandhi, who rushed to the region and went barefoot around villages for about four months preaching communal harmony and non-violence before the clashes finally came to an end.

The Noakhali Peace Mission set up by Mr Gandhi, known as Gandhiji, is considered to be a key event during the Indian independence struggle.

The violence in Noakhali started months after similar massive communal riots in the eastern Indian city of Calcutta. Thousands died in the "Great Calcutta Killings". 

"We came back to our village in Noakhali after life returned to normal. But the communal riot left a deep scar on my mind ," the 74-year-old woman affectionately known as Jharnadi recalls.

"I was deeply touched by Gandhiji's peace message. It influenced me to work for the community and to promote communal harmony." 

Mahatma Gandhi.

Overwhelming response

 

Although she never met Gandhi in person, she said she was touched by his principles of non-violence, self reliance and community work. 

In line with Gandhian values, she thought basic education was vital to lift people out of poverty and to promote better understanding.

At the age of 17, Ms Chowdhury (Jharnadi) and her sister started a school in her village for under-privileged children. 

Although neither had proper qualifications, it was met with an overwhelming response.

"We had no money to run the school. We used to fast twice a week to save some money. With that money, we bought books and other items," she recounted.

But the school was closed after a few years because the sisters were not qualified. The decision shattered them. 

Later, Jharnadi became a full-time social worker and lived in Dhaka, Chittagong, Comilla and in many other parts of the country. Like many Gandhian followers, she stayed single to focus fully on her work.

After spending many years working in various social organisations, Jharnadi finally joined the Gandhi Ashram Trust. It was established in the village of Jayag, soon after his visit to Noakhali.

"When Gandhiji left in March 1947, he told some of his disciples to stay back and that he would return. But he was killed a year later," Jharnadi said.

"His followers, led by Charu Chowdhury, believed that Gandhiji will one day come back in spirit, so they never left this place and continued with their community work until their deaths."

'Much better'

 

Hemanta Kumar Ghosh, a local landlord, donated his house and about 2,500 acres of land to the charity. The house has a symbolic significance as Gandhi stayed there for a night during his Noakhali peace mission.

When East Bengal became part of Pakistan, Gandhian followers and the charitable trust went through a turbulent period. Most of the land donated to the trust was confiscated and the Gandhians were put in jail on suspicion of spying for India.

But despite various threats from the Pakistani authorities, the disciples refused to leave.

"Four of Gandhiji's disciples were killed by Pakistani soldiers in the same house. After spending many years in jail, Charu Chowdhury was released when Bangladesh became independent in 1971," she recalled.

She says that the ashram has gradually regained its past glory since 1971.

However, after years of court battles, only 25 acres of Gandhi Ashram Trust lands were recovered. A small Gandhi museum has also been set up in the main building.

Soon after the death of Charu Chowdhury in 1990, Jharnadi took over the responsibility of running the trust.

Today it is working directly with 25,000 poor families, both Muslims and Hindus. It has become a centre for various activities including training programmes for rural women to boost their income, free education for poor children and poverty alleviation schemes. 

Jharnadi also travels around villages in the Noakhali region, working to improve the lives of Dalits, who are at the bottom of the centuries-old Hindu caste system. 

The ashram is still working steadfastly to maintain peace and harmony between different communities. But almost 65-years after the bloody riots, has that been achieved in the Noakhali region?

"Things are much better now. There hasn't been any major communal riot here ever since Gandhiji visited this place. His peace mission has left a lasting legacy here in Noakhali," said Jharnadi proudly.

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Bangladesh war crimes trial raises specter of mass rape in 1971 Liberation War

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The 1971 Liberation War between East and West Pakistan saw the Pakistan army commit countless atrocities, mostly against Hindus. Hundreds of thousands of Hindu women were raped.

The war was sparked when East Pakistan seceded, declaring itself the independent nation of Bangladesh.

To call the war brutal would be an understatement. Mass graves were still being discovered decades later.

The ghost of the 1971 war still refuses to disappear. Over the last few months -- ignored by the Western media, which always reveals itself to be myopic and provincial whenever opportunity arises -- the International Crimes Tribunal has been hearing the case of Delwar Hossain Sayedee (usually known simply as "Sayedee"), leader of the extremist Islamist movement Jamaat-e-Islami.

We will probably never know how many women were raped by Pakistani forces in East Pakistan (now Bangladesh), but the most frequently cited figure is over 200,000. Some authorities believe the number of victims to be considerably higher; possibly up to 400,000. Whatever the case, the brutalization of the Bangladeshis was at once savage and calculated.

Sayedee is accused of helping the Pakistani army rape Hindu women, and of forcibly converting a number of Hindus to Islam.

We should not lose sight of the fact that the conflict was one primarily about land and culture, and the war about independence verses the loss of territory, and the loss of face on the world stage. The East Pakistanis (now Bangladeshis) were more educated than the West Pakistanis, and their economy was stronger, largely as a result of East Pakistan's tea, jute, rice, and mango exports, among others. Although the two halves of Pakistan communicated in English, out of necessity, the two sides spoke different languages. The East Pakistanis spoke mostly Bengali. The West Pakistanis spoke mostly Urdu.

Nevertheless, Islam was used to justify, and to encourage, violence on a massive scale against the Hindus of East Pakistan. As the Indian Daily Star put it, "Islam cannot countenance the practice of Muslims brutalising and annihilating other Muslims. But the stark reality of the demons of radical religious forces raising ugly faces surfaced in the form of torture and killing of the people in the then East Pakistan. The way the whole country meaning the then East Pakistan inhabited by Bengali speaking people suffered and witnessed torture, rape and massacre nothing could stop its 75 million people from going the separate way after that fateful night of March 25, 1971."

Sayedee is innocent until proven guilty. Testimony so far, though, cannot but raise the specter of the mass raping of innocent women, and the hundreds of thousands of lives shattered by the war.

We know from history that if religion is used to justify war and violence, forced conversions -- along with forced rape -- will become a strategy of war. Jews, we know, were forced to convert to Christianity in some parts of late medieval Europe. At other times they were subject to pogroms, including into the early twentieth century. But it is something that we would hope had been left to history. Yet, today, in Bangladesh, there are still thousands -- possibly hundreds of thousands, whose lives are still affected by the war and the atrocities visited upon them.

Earlier in January, choking with emotion, one witness told the court, "They [Sayedee and his fellow collaborators with the Pakistani army] picked up three of my sisters and handed them over to a Pakistani soldiers' camp in Pirojpur." The man told the court that his sister "were raped at the camp... and sent back home after three days…" before breaking down, crying. ""They forced me, my parents and siblings," he said, "to convert to Islam and made us say prayers at the mosque."

The Daily Star reports that the witness believed Sayedee had forcibly converted between 100 and 150 Hindus to Islam.

In early February another witness described how he had returned to his house one day, only for his to tell him that she had been raped by Sayedee. They had been married only a few days before the war broke out.

Traumatized by the rape, the couple later agreed that she should go to live in India. The witness -- whose name is not being released for his own safety -- said that he had not seen her since. He was also forcibly converted to Islam at the time, but returned to his original religion after the war.

Court was adjourned as the witness -- who is now 81 years-old -- felt sick giving testimony.

Three witnesses for the prosecution have since disappeared. They had been in the custody of the prosecution, but were released to visit relatives in Dhaka. The three judges have adjourned the case while they are being searched for.

However the trial ends, it is a painful reminder of one of the worst atrocities of the twentieth century, and of how religion can be used to justify the most barbaric forms of violence.

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Child sacrifice to gods still in vogue in India

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It is a strange story to believe that some Indians still continue to sacrifice children to their gods to achieve their blessings for better prospects in life! It indeed appears unbelievable and nerve-shaking too to hear such things do happen even at the beginning of 21 century. In fact, it did happen in the Indian province of Chhattisgarh where a seven-year old girl named Lalita Tati was murdered by two Indians and her liver was offered to their gods, believing it would bring them better harvest.

According to media reports, the body of the murdered girl Lalita was found in October last, one week after her parents reported her missing to the police. However, the outside world came to know about this in the first week of January. Perhaps interested quarters somehow managed to keep it from being published in the media.

Deeply superstitious

The media reports also pointed out that in 2010, two children were sacrificed in the same Indian province Chhattisgarh where Lalita was killed in the name of religion in October 2011. The report further says that in 2010, the mutilated body of a factory worker was found in a temple in West Bengal which is also one of the progressive provinces in India. It shows that the illiterate and poorer section of the Indians are still groping in the black hole of superstition and wrong interpretation of religion, as taught by the interested religious leaders. In fact, some Indians, because of their simplicity and deep religious belief, have been following the centuries-old tradition that had been coming down from generations without any serious efforts to free them from their wrong notion. So it does not make any difference whether such crimes are committed in Chhattisgarh, or West Bengal. As a foreign news agency notes what still happen in the “deeply religious and superstition India”, when, “human sacrifices occasionally makes headlines” and usually occurs in poor areas where “some people sever, practitioners of black magic.”

So abduction of children or stealing of new-born babies, to offer them as ‘sacrifice’ to the gods by the Hindus in India is not a new thing. It is a tradition being followed by them as part of socio-religious life. It is said that the Indians of ancient days never heard of or engaged in ‘secularism’ that gives a new light of life, leaving religion to teach and spread other noble lessons for people to follow, abandoning the wrong teachings in the name of religion.

Akbar’s legacy

It may be recalled here that the Indians came to know what ‘secularism’ is and how it separates the ancient religious life, when Mughal Emperor, Akbar the Great, introduction ‘secularism’ as part of administration and political life, by appointing highly qualified Hindu personalities in his army and civil administration. That is why Akbar the Great is known as the father of secularism in India. But Emperor Akbar was not able to free the Indians from following their tradition of ‘child sacrifice’ to gods. Even during the British rule of India over two centuries, the system continued unobstructed, although a number of social reforms were introduced during this period. Perhaps the British rulers kept away, giving the people full freedom of following the prevailing socio-religious practice. However, a great Indian personality, basically a Bengali, Michael Madhusudhan Dutta, took bold steps to stop the burning of the widows alive along with the dead bodies of their husbands during cremation. Also he strongly advocated the remarriage of the widows, instead of forcing them to live a widow’s life for ever.

The Bangladesh scene

Now let us come to Bangladesh as we are in closest neighbourhood of India where we have seen how brutal killings continue of children for sacrifice to their gods for better prospects in life. The Hindu citizens of Bangladesh seem to be far advanced then their counterparts in India. In Bangladesh, they are seldom found or caught in the killing of children as ‘sacrifice’ to their gods for receiving blessings. But the brutal crime – if not for killing but for financial gains – of abduction of children and stealing of new-born babies from hospital beds, seemingly has changed hands and purposes as the crime is going from bad to worse. Nobody knows when it would end unless the government takes firm actions to end such crimes.

According to a latest media report, the police had arrested a number of child abductors in different districts, rescuing three abducted child in Mymensingh and Gazipur districts. The police also arrested a female member of the gang and rescued a child from her possession. According to police report, the abductors seem to be running their ‘business’ of selling children in a planned way. The woman abductor arrested in Mymensingh introduced herself as a school teacher and later abducted a seven year old girl, named Afrin Iqbal, when she was playing with other children near her house. The police report further says that the child abductors go to different villages and abduct children in guise of ‘development workers’ of some insurance companies. The police department now knows all about the ‘operation’ of these criminals, they are now expected to launch their ‘operation’ to arrest these criminals for proper punishment. Otherwise, this ‘crime’ of child-lifting would spread like another phase of ‘corruption.’

Capital punishment

It is reported that most of the abducted children and stolen new-born babies are sold at high prices to those who have no children. But there is no guarantee that these children would not be smuggled across the border for higher prices? However, the people will wait to see how the government tackles this growing crime and what punishment is awarded to the criminals who had already been arrested to show to other criminals to refrain from such heinous crimes. The government should, therefore, award heavy punishment, preferably capital punishment to these criminals, instead of a mere ‘white-wash’ in the name of trial. Let us hope for the best.

BY :  A M M Shahabuddin.