From: raquib_hassan@cbis.ece.drexel.edu (Raquib Hassan)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.bangladesh
Subject: News
Date: 15 Oct 92 14:27:02 GMT
Organization: Drexel University
X-Useragent: Nuntius v1.1a2

UPI reports:
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	DHAKA, Bangladesh (UPI) -- Indian forces are continuing to build up
along Bangladesh's southwestern border with India, as tension mounts
between the two countries over alleged illegal immigrants, news reports
said Saturday.
	Bangladesh border authorities have warned they may take military
action if the Indian build-up continues, officials said.
	In New Delhi, an Indian government spokesman denied the reports,
saying there had been no rise in Indian troop activity along the
Bangladesh frontier.
	``We are only trying to halt the continuing influx of refugees from
Bangladesh,'' the spokesman told United Press International.
	According to the Bengali daily Inquilab, the Indian Border Security
Force is building two lines of bunkers 50 yards away from the border,
near the Benapole crossing point in the district of Jessore.
	The paper said the bunkers are manned by teams of up to seven Indian
bordertroops, and that weapons inside the bunkers include three-inch
mortars and heavy machine guns.
	The build-up came after the Bangladesh Rifles, Dhaka's only border
security unit, drove back nearly 400 Bengali-speaking people across the
border Friday night.
	The deportees, mostly Muslims, had been forced across the border by
the Indian border troops in the districts of Jessore and Satkhira, as
part of Operation Push Back, which began Sept. 21 with the deportation
of 132 people across the border.
	India claims they are illegal immigrants. Bangladesh denies the
claim, saying they are Indian citizens.
	Unconfirmed reports late Saturday said the Indian Border Security
Force had agreed to refrain from further deportations, pending a final
decision on Operation Push Back.
	A dispatch friom Dhaka's independent Daily Star newspaper said the
security force's deputy inspector general made the pledge Saturday
afternoon at a meeting with the Bangladesh Rifles.
	India's 1,377-mile border with Bangladesh is manned by the
paramilitary Border Security Force and there are no regular Indian Army
troops in the region. The border cuts through mainly flat delta land and
Indian border troops have been unable to stem the entry of aliens.
	Indian federal and state officials agreed late last month to take
stringent measures to check the influx of Bangladeshis trying to escape
poverty at home.
	Several Indian states are wracked by movements demanding the
expulsion of millions of predominantly Muslim immigrant settlers from
Bangladesh.
	India deported in September a small group of Bangladeshis living
illegally in New Delhi. But further expulsions have been stymied by
Dhaka's refusal to take back the refugees.
	Meanwhile, Bangladesh border forces claim the Indian troops have
fired on Bangladeshi positions from a bunker in the Akhra field near
Benapole, according to the Inquilab report Saturday. That attack came
after Bangladeshi troops fired on Indian forces Thursday, the paper
said.
	Officials said Saturday the Bangladeshi area commander wrote a letter
to the commander of the Indian battalion deployed in the area. The
letter said Bangladeshi forces would shoot back if Indian provocations
continue, such as Thursday's shooting and the construction of bunkers
continued.
	Bangladeshi officers along the Jessore border fear a flare-up of the
situation, as their Indian counterparts prepare to deport another 5,000
Bengali speakers gathered at camps along the frontier.
	According to news reports, inhabitants of villages along both sides
of the border have begun leaving their homes in droves following the
shooting incident Thursday night.
	Local officials visited the villages of Khatipara and Bara Achra near
the border Friday night, and asked the villagers not to panic and leave
their homes in the ``face of provocations.''

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Source : The News India Network