Meghalaya: BSF to take up stone pelting incident with its Bangladesh counterpart

Shillong, April 24: The Border Security Force (BSF) would be taking up the issue of unprovoked stone pelting on Indians by Bangladeshi revellers during Eid celebrations at the India Bangladesh border at Dawki with its Bangladesh counterpart.

Officials informed The Assam Tribune that although the incident was minor in nature and happened during the Eid celebrations, the authorities aren’t taking it kindly and would “strongly” take up the matter during bilateral talks. 

“The incident is minor in nature and lasted about 10 minutes or so, in which Bangladeshi revellers from their side came across towards the Indian side and started pelting stones on the Indians,” a senior BSF official said.

He informed the matter would be taken up so that such minor incidents wouldn’t snowball into a major confrontation in future. “I believe we have already taken up the issue at the field level and definitely this would come up during the Director General level meeting between the BSF and Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB,)” the official said.

He added that taking strong and proactive action on such miscreants would foster the strong India-Bangladesh ties that the two nations currently enjoy. Further, this would also prevent mischief-mongers from creating distrust in this age of social media, where things are amplified, the BSF official said.

He added that the video of this incident was first reported by the Bangladesh media. “A Twitter handle “Voice of Bangladesh” first aired the video through its channel and condemned the incident. Thereafter, it went viral,” he said.

Currently, this video is gaining traction in the state capital and is being shared widely, in which some of the Bangladeshis are heard raising anti-India slogans, the official said.

The incident happened at Dawki, where a large number of tourists ventured to witness the crystal clear water of river Umngot. Tourists can take a boat ride on the river. The Bangladesh side is called Jaflong and is also a tourist spot and Bangladeshis from all across the country come there, especially during the sweltering summer seasons.

Since it’s a riverine border with Bangladesh, the international border is considered to be the imaginary horizontal line in the middle of the river flowing from India to Bangladesh.