India-Bangladesh border talks to be held in Guwahati from Tuesday

51st director general-level border coordination conference between Border Security Force (BSF) and Border Guard Banglesh (BGB) will be held in Guwahati from December 22 to 26, an official statement said.

This is for first time in four deces that biannual conference will be held outside Delhi.

BSF delegation will be led by Director General Rakesh Asthana while BGB delegation will heed by force's chief Major General Md Shafeenul Islam.

conference will focus on dressing and streamlining mechanisms on how to jointly curb various trans-border crimes and timely sharing of information between both border guarding forces, an official statement said.

re will be deliberations on developmental and infrastructure works, joint efforts for effective implementation of Coordinated Border Management Plan (CBMP) and Confidence Building Measures (CBMs), statement said.

aim of talks is to discuss border related issues, and to enable better coordination between both forces, it said.

last BSF–BGB conference was held from September 16 to 19 in Dhaka, capital of Banglesh.

joint India-Banglesh guidelines for border authorities – 1975 envisage that re should be frequent contact between border authorities of two concerned countries to discuss matters of immediate ministrative concern.  An Indian delegation under leership of Ashwani Kumar, n Director General of BSF and Banglesh delegation under leership of Major General Quazi Golam Dastgir, former Director General BDR (now BGB) met in Kolkata on December 2, 1975 for first time to discuss mutual border problems.

Since n, meetings between DG BSF and DG BGB were held annually alternatively in India and Banglesh till 1993.  During discussions between home secretaries of India and Banglesh that were held at Dhaka from Oct 7 to 9 in 1993, it was agreed that director general-level meetings between BSF and BGB, were to be a biannual event.

In agreed summary of discussions during said meeting, it was emphasised that problems in areas of mutual interests and concerns could be progressively resolved through close contacts and continuing meaningful dialogue at various levels. Accordingly, DG BSF and DG BGB have been holding border coordination meetings twice a year alternatively at Delhi and Dhaka and joint record of discussions of se meetings are forwarded to Ministry of Home Affairs after each such meeting, statement said.

Assam's capital city is base for BSF's Guwahati frontier hequarters whose troops guard 495 km of front, out of total 4,096 km long India-Banglesh international border, that runs along this state and some parts of West Bengal.

A special BSF water wing that keeps vigil along riverine border areas including Dhubri in Assam are under command of this frontier of border force.

current relations between two countries and forces are very good and and both sides will take m forward during se talks, officials said.

While Indian side is expected to take up issue of joint border security management, fencing of unfenced areas and undertaking effective steps to curb cross-border crimes, Bangaldeshi border force is expected to take up issues related to killing of its people along front.

BSF DG Asthana, during last meeting in Dhaka, has said that killing of criminals along front will be "me to reduce significantly" even as he reiterated that his troops only fire when ir lives are endangered by cross-border miscreants. He h said that death or apprehension of criminals on border are "irrespective of nationalities." "BSF personnel fire with non-lethal weapon only in self-defence when y are surrounded by large number of miscreants armed with dah (cleaver-shaped knife), sticks etc, and ir lives are endangered," he was quoted as saying by a BSF spokesperson.

two sides are also expected to firm up new standard operating procedures (SOPs) in view of crossing of "significant" number of mentally disabled Indian nationals to Banglesh, a plan mooted by BSF chief.

two forces, after Dhaka talks in September, h also decided to "share real-time information" with each or expeditiously through formal or informal channels regarding human trafficking, smuggling of narcotics, fake Indian currency notes, cattle, arms, ammunition, explosives, information related to anti-social elements, activities of IIGs (Indian Insurgent groups) and breach or damage of border fence.