The government will not take responsibility for cattle smugglers crossing the border to India, said Food Minister Sadhan Chandra Majumder.
During an event in Rajshahi on Saturday (Jan 25), he said that they were trying to bring back the bodies of two Bangladeshis gunned down by India's Border Security Force (BSF).
“If someone gets shot while crossing over the wired fencing to bring in cattle, the Bangladesh government will not take any responsibility for it,” he said.
The minister added that the district and upazila law enforcing agency committees and Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB) have a resolution regarding the matter.
Earlier this month, BGB Director General Shafeenul Islam said that there were 35 killings in different border areas of Bangladesh last year.
He said that the issue of border killings was discussed at a six-day 49th DG level BGB-BSF meeting in New Delhi from December 25 to 30 where they voiced their concerns about the killing of Bangladeshis by BSF.
At the meeting, the BSF claimed that it had killed fewer than 35 Bangladeshis last year, an assertion refuted by the BGB, which claimed that 35 people had been killed by the BSF since a number of Bangladeshis were badly injured in BSF firing and later succumbed to their injuries.
However, the rights organization Ain o Salish Kendra (ASK) has claimed that 43 Bangladeshis were killed in the border regions in the last one year.
Islam said that the number of border killings in 2019 has been the highest in comparison with the last four years.