India mute on Jeevan Kumar's murder by K Gupta

[Guest guest]

http://in.rediff.com/news/2005/apr/19kanch.htm

India mute on Jeevan Kumar's slaughterApril 19, 2005

Late in the evening on Saturday, April 16, an assistant commandant and a

constable of the Border Security Force, on duty at Lankamura outpost on the

India-Bangladesh border a mere 8 km from Tripura's capital, Agartala, were

dragged into Bangladeshi territory.

By the time the BSF got them back, Assistant Commandant Jeevan Kumar was dead.

He had been shot at point blank range. Injuries on his body indicate he was

brutally knifed before being killed. Constable K K Surendran, seriously

injured, is battling for his life.

Bangladesh Rifles lacks discipline: BSF

Reports suggest that the two were rushed by a group of Bangladeshis in civilian

clothes, dragged across the border and then set upon by Bangladesh Rifles

personnel. All the while, the BDR kept firing on the Lankamura outpost. The

firing stopped around midnight, followed by a hastily arranged flag meeting

during which Kumar's lifeless body and a barely alive Surendran were handed

over to the BSF.

The incident revives memories of the slaughter of 16 jawans of the BSF by the

BDR on April 18, 2001. On that occasion, Bangladeshi civilians had trapped the

BSF jawans into crossing the India-Bangladesh border in Meghalaya. BDR

personnel then killed the jawans in cold blood.

The UPA government is yet to take note of Saturday's incident; even if cursory

note, apart from the routine protest lodged by the Indian high commission in

Dhaka, has been taken by the ministry of external affairs, it has been drowned

by the sound and din of General Pervez Musharraf's visit. In 2001, the NDA

government had let the slaughter pass because it did not want to 'upset a

friendly government' -- then headed by Sheikh Hasina Wajed.

Truce along the India-Bangladeshi border is extremely uneasy at the best of

times, with the BDR often resorting to unprovoked firing with the purpose of

either stalling work on border fencing or distracting BSF personnel so that

illegal immigrants, at times scores of families, can sneak across.

The Bangladeshi intrusion

In the past couple of months, the BDR has resorted to heavy firing on five

occasions along the 856-km stretch in Tripura of India's 4,095 km border with

Bangladesh. Tripura is one of the major entry points of Bangladeshi immigrants.

Ironically, Saturday's incident occurred while BSF Director General R S

Mooshahary was in Dhaka, attending a high-level meeting with BDR chief Major

General Jehangir Alam Chowdhury to work out the modalities of better border

management and coordinated patrolling.

Although Prime Minister Manmohan Singh refused to attend the 13th SAARC summit

in Dhaka, scheduled for early February, citing Bangladesh's deteriorating law

and order problem as one of the reasons, the UPA government has been extremely

lethargic in confronting the problems India faces from its increasingly

belligerent eastern neighbour: illegal immigration, sanctuary for separatists

and export of Islamists.

This despite the Supreme Court repeatedly issuing notices to the Union

government on steps being taken to tackle the burgeoning problem of illegal

immigration from Bangladesh. Last week, seven non-BJP chief ministers,

including those from North-Eastern states, Marxist-ruled West Bengal and

Congress-ruled Maharashtra, voiced concern over illegal immigration at the

chief ministers' conference on internal security.

The chief ministers made three points: first, the inflow of illegal immigrants

from Bangladesh is fast reaching an alarming level; second, Bangladeshis in

India are a security threat because many of them have links with ISI and jihadi

groups; and, third, serious demographic imbalances are emerging all over the

country.

Look at the galloping Muslim population in Nagaland, Arunachal Pradesh, Mizoram

and even Sikkim, and you will realise the mind-boggling magnitude of the

onslaught of illegal immigration. Visit the border districts of West Bengal,

Bihar and Assam where Bangladeshis have pushed Muslim population growth rate to

anything between 19 to 25 per cent, reducing Hindus to minority status, and you

will come face-to-face with the monster of illegal immigration.

And how does the Government of India, never mind its political tag, which has

such overweening pretensions of being a regional power and emerging global

player, react to the situation? By looking the other way, by sanctioning ration

cards, by enlisting illegal immigrants as bona fide voters, by allowing

Bangladeshis to undercut jobs in the unorganised sector, by giving foreigners

sanction to squat on prime public property, by telling the police not to act

against those who have no business to be on India's soil.

The Delhi high court, on the basis of a public interest litigation filed by

concerned citizens, had asked the Government of India for details of what

action is being taken to deport illegal immigrants. On March 16, the court was

aghast when the government demanded that the hearing of the petition should be

stopped as the matter was being taken up at the diplomatic level.

Not impressed by the government's skulduggery, the court observed that Delhi

police had been 'very slow in identifying illegal Bangladeshi settlers' and

asked the Union and Delhi governments as well as the police to file affidavits

on the steps taken to identify illegal immigrants, withdraw legal documents

like ration cards issued to them and cancel land allotments.

The case comes up for hearing again on May 18. Between now and then, it is

unlikely that a government that is not moved by the slaying of a BSF officer by

Bangladesh Rifles personnel will come up with proposals on how to evict illegal

immigrants from Bangladesh. Like its NDA predecessor that frittered away six

years in power trying to prove its secular credentials by indulging in rank

communal politics centred around minority appeasement, the UPA government, too,

shall pander to absurdities that have no place in a secular State, that too one

with delusions of power.

Recently, a senior UPA worthy told me, "Yes, there are hundreds of thousands of

illegal immigrants from Bangladesh, many more are arriving every day." So why

don't you do something? "We can't, you see, because that would lead to a law

and order situation." And thereby hangs a tale of wilful, criminal non-action.

Meanwhile, with all attention focused on Pakistan, the silence on Bangladesh

maintained by successive Union governments has only emboldened Dhaka. Begum

Khaleda Zia's Islamist regime knows that India will not protest, not even with

a rap on her knuckles. Therefore, BDR can kill BSF personnel with impunity, and

in the most gruesome manner, secure in the knowledge that there shall be no

punishment for their crime.

The widow and three-year-old daughter of Assistant Commandant Jeevan Kumar in

distant Ranchi can shed bitter tears. But they are of little concern to

imperial Delhi whose masnad (the round pillows which politicians use) is as

moth-eaten as that on which Bahadur Shah Zafar sat, pretending to rule

India.End of Matter