Shillong, July 1: The four-day bilateral conference between the Border Security Force (BSF) and the Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB) commenced here on Monday to strengthen coordination and cooperation between the two forces.

This conference is being held at the rank of Inspector General, India and Region Commander level from Bangladesh. These are equivalent rank and only the names differ.

Both the Indian and Bangladesh delegation is 13-member strong and consists of officials from the BSF-BGB and also officials from the Ministry of Home Affairs, External Affairs, (Foreign Affairs, Bangladesh) and the Narcotic Control Bureau.

Heading the Indian delegation is Inspector General, Patel Piyush Purusottam Das from the Tripura frontier. He is joined by officials from the Meghalaya, Silchar, and Tripura frontiers.

The Bangladesh delegation is led by Md Shazedur Rahman, Additional Director General and Region Commander of the SouthEast Region, Chattogram, and supported by others from Bangladesh.

These biannual conferences are an opportunity for both sides to raise issues of mutual concern. Some of these issues include cross-border crime, regional development initiatives, counter-smuggling efforts, and other security related matters.

The BSF in the past have been raising the issue of cross border militancy with Bangladesh. The BSF has been requesting its Bangladesh counterpart to act against such outfits’ camp on its soil. Bangladesh has routinely denied the presence of such elements in its territory.

Smuggling of goods and narcotics have also remained one of the other important issues that both the countries are worried about. Cattle and narcotic (primarily cough syrup) smuggling from India to Bangladesh remains an area of concern.

Currently, smuggling of sugar from India has risen because the price of sugar in Bangladesh is way higher than what it is in the Indian market. Smugglers therefore smuggle sugar to Bangladesh and the BSF has seized several tons of such illegal consignment in Meghalaya in recent times. Similar issues would be raised during the meeting and discussions held how to stop such illegal activities, a BSF official said.

Meanwhile, the conference will conclude with the signing of a Joint Record of Discussion to summarise the outcome of the meeting and the agreements reached between the two sides.

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