Former chief of Bangladesh Border Guard Mainul Islam at a seminar on Sunday said no trucks that carried explosives were scanned while they crossed the border and their movements were never monitored until they reached their final destination.
Mainul, a retired lieutenant general who had served as chief of general staff in army before his retirement, also said there was no record on where the trucks were going and how those reached their final destination.
During his posting in BGB between February 28, 2009 and May 9, 2010, he said they found one truck carrying explosives from India took one month and a half to reach Chittagong after it had crossed the international border without any scanning.
‘It’s in no way logical that a truck would take such time to reach Chittagong,’ he told the seminar on ‘Cross Border Security : Challenges and Cooperation, Bangladesh perspective’ at Bangladesh Institute of International and Strategic Studies in the city.
Major General AKM Abdur Rahman, the director general of BIISS, retired major general Syed Muhammad Ibrahim, chairman of Bangladesh Kallyan Party, and Abdul Mannan, a former AL lawmaker from Meherpur, among others, spoke at the seminar.
The Center for Governance Studies hosted the seminar presided over by its chairman Ataur Rahman.
As guest of honour, Mainul said after any blast in Bangladesh, it was said the explosives were from India but those were brought here formally either for mining or for any construction work.
The former BGB chief also narrated what challenges he had to face to maintain the border and said political will is a must to keep the border crime free.
Jahangirnagar University teacher Shahab Anam Khan presented the keynote paper at the seminar in which he claimed that ‘Bangladesh has become the source of security for India, at least for its northeastern part, while Bangladesh’s sources of insecurity from Indian are yet to be fixed’.
Another major issue in Bangladesh is India’s support for the Awami League in the questionable general election in the country in January 2014. And in fact, he said, India had provided strong support for the Awami League government of Sheikh Hasina since 2008.
Jatiya Party (Ershad) lawmaker Kazi Firoz Rashid supported Shahab Anam Khan over the Indian role in Bangladesh election and said the diplomats working at Bangladeshi missions abroad usually remained busy in rendering protocol to VIPs coming from the country.
They get no time for work, said Firoz, a former minister.
The VIPs who go to India remain busy in sightseeing and taking photographs while Banfladeshi diplomats escort them and give them company, said Firoz Rashid, also a presidium member of Jatiya Party.
Discussants at the seminar urged the government to stand firm on Rohingya issue.
They also urged the government to play a strong role for stopping border killings.
Dilip Barua, former commerce minister, said, ‘We need political consensus on national security issue. We have given India everything they wanted, but unfortunately we are not getting our rightful share of waters of the common rivers.’
News Courtesy: http://www.newagebd.net/article/21935/no-explosive-carrying-trucks-scanned-at-border-posing-risk-ex-bgb-chief 9