India lodges protest with Bangladesh

By Our Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI, APRIL 21. India today lodged a ``very strong protest'' with Bangladesh over the ``inhuman treatment'' of the personnel of the Border Security Force (BSF), asserting that men in uniform have to be treated with dignity at all times. The official protest came within hours of the Prime Minister, Mr. Atal Behari Vajpayee, took a ``serious view'' of the mutilation of the bodies of the 15 BSF personnel.

The bodies were handed over to the BSF officials on Friday after considerable delay. The BSF chief, Mr. Gurbachan Jagat, who was present at the border, had to rush to the capital to brief the Prime Minister on the situation along the border. Mr. Jagat is expected to brief the Prime Minister and other senior Cabinet colleagues including the Home Minister, Mr. L.K. Advani, and the Minister of External Affairs and Defence, Mr. Jaswant Singh, tomorrow.

Conveying his impressions about the ground situation before emplaning to New Delhi form Guwahati, the BSF Director- General was of the view that his men had been killed in ``cold blood'' and the bodies bore tell-tale signs of brutal torture inflicted on them. The BSF personnel had been strangulated, had their bones broken and some of the bodies were charred beyond recognition. They had been shot from a pointblank range through their eyes.

The BSF chief said that available information indicated that the soldiers were killed by the men of Bangladesh Rifles and not by villagers as widely suspected earlier.

Meanwhile, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) said that India had stressed before the Bangladesh authorities that its security personnel had to be treated with dignity under any circumstances. ``Even their bodies have to be treated with dignity,'' the Ministry spokesperson said.

During his daily briefing, the MEA spokesperson indicated that the BSF personnel who were killed were part of a border patrol ``which went missing'' along a sector of the Indo- Bangladesh border in Assam. He denied that the BSF personnel were killed while trying to seize a cross-border enclave in retaliation to the takeover of the village of Pyrdiwah along the Meghalaya- Bangladesh border by the Bangladesh Rifles earlier this week. He clarified that there was no firing during the standoff between the BSF and the BDR personnel at Pyrdiwah. ``The status quo ante was restored within 48 hours on account following a diplomatic engagement.''

India, the spokesperson asserted, had stressed to the Bangladeshi authorities that the incident had to be ``fully investigated''. It also expected that such incidents were not repeated. Besides, New Delhi demanded that the two injured BSF personnel now undergoing treatment in a Dhaka military hospital be returned immediately. Representatives of the Indian High Commissioner had been given access to these soldiers, he said.

India had expressed its concerns and expectations to Bangladesh at several diplomatic levels. The Foreign Secretary, Ms. Chokila Iyer, summoned the High Commissioner of Bangladesh to South Block today to lodge New Delhi's protest. The High Commissioner was told that such incidents were not in keeping with the friendly relations between countries and, therefore, recurrence must be prevented. Ms. Iyer also spoke to her counterpart in Bangladesh on similar lines. Besides, a parallel statement was also issued by the Indian High Commissioner to Bangladesh, Mr. M.L. Tripathi, before the Bangladesh's Foreign Minister, Mr. Abdus Samad, in Dhaka.

To a question, the spokesperson clarified that the External Affairs Minister had not spoken to the political leadership in Bangladesh. With the restoration of status quo in Pyrdiwah, the issue had been satisfactorily resolved.

Last rites performed

UNI reports from Shillong:

The last rites of the 15 soldiers were performed at the BSF's 118th battalion camp at Tura. While 13 of the 15 bodies handed over to the Indian authorities at Meghalaya's Mahendraganj were consigned to flames, the bodies of two Muslim soldiers, identified as constables H. Sheikh and Mafuluddin, were buried.

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