BSF has gunned down yet another Bangladeshi on Monday 31 August taking the total of such killings to 70 during the eights months of this year. The latest victim was identified as Ershad Ali 32, a cattle trader who was killed along Putkhali border on Monday.(The Bd Today)

According to a UNB report: Indian Border Security Force (BSF) killed a Bangladeshi cattle trader at Putkhali border early Monday. BDR sources said BSF troops of Angrai camp caught Ershad Ali, 32, after a chase while he was returning home from India.The Indian border guards then beat him and tortured him with electric shock, leaving him dead on the spot. The body of Ershad, resident of Khalshi village in Benapole port thana, was left at no man's land from where BDR recovered it.

According to statistics projected by 'Adhikar', a non-government human rights watchdog, some 62 Bangladeshi civilians were killed by the Indian BSF from January 1 to July 11 this year. It said: in more than nine years between 1 January 2000 and 10 July 2009 a total of 789 people were reported killed, 846 injured and 895 abducted by the BSF.

With the latest killing on August 31 the total number of Bangladeshis killed since 1 January 2009 stands at 70 , and that from 1 January 2000 to 31 August , 2009 stands at 797.

The killings of unarmed Bangladeshis by the BSF on the border are continuing in clear violation of the spirit of good neighborliness as well as international law and despite repeated pledges by the Indian authorities to stop it. In every meeting between BSF and BDR and also between the higher level officials of the two countries, the Indian side assures that killing of Bangladeshis by its forces on the border would come to an end immediately. But this pledge is seldom implemented.

Indian BSF had pledged very recently once again to stop killings of Bangladeshi citizens on the border. The assurance was given by BSF Chief Mahendra Lal Kumawat at a joint press briefing on conclusion of the three-day high level BDR-BSF conference in Dhaka on July 14. But it appears that BSF does not mean what it says and hence it continues killing Bangladeshis.