Indians occupy vast Bangladesh land in Sylhet border

Reported by: UNBconnect
Reported on: Dec 29, 2010 03:40 pm
Reported in: National

 (UNB) - Indians have allegedly occupied 32 kilometers of Bangladesh land in border areas of Bianibazar and Zakiganj upazilas of Sylhet district.

Local administration and land settlement officials of the two upazilas and local people said the occupied land has been omitted from the survey list at India’s instigation in order to keep those out of the land settlement survey which is being jointly conducted by Bangladesh and India in the border.

Besides the 32 kilometers of land, they said, another 712 acres of Bangladesh land at Noagaon Mouja of Muria union in Bianibazar upazila was also occupied by the Indians and being used by them for long.

These lands were not included in the ongoing land settlement survey and also left out of the two countries’ boundary talks and previous surveys under pressure from India, it was alleged.

Bangladesh may lose these vast tracts of lands unless steps are not taken immediately to include those in the current land settlement survey, the local administration cautioned.

According to upazila land settlement officials, Boundary Commission chief Sir Cyril Radcliff, in collusion with Indian Congress leaders, submitted a report in British parliament on August 17 in 1947, illegally including three frontier thanas - Patharkandi, Ratabari and Badarpur - in Assam. The three thanas originally belonged to erstwhile East Pakistan on the basis of plebiscite held on the eve of partition of the sub-continent.

Similarly, the 32 kilometers of land from the mouth of Barak river at Haritikar to Gajukata near midstream of Kushiara river was originally given to erstwhile East Pakistan and later occupied by India in 1947.

No initiative has been taken so far even after the independence of Bangladesh to recover the occupied lands, nor any measures taken to include the matter in the two countries` agenda of negotiations or in the survey records.

As a sequel to Indian conspiracy, Bangladesh also lost its sovereignty over 712 acres of land in the border between Sylhet`s Bianibazar and Karimganj thana of Assam.

Banking on the Radcliff report, the Indian authorities forcibly occupied the land during the Pakistan period but later agreed to return it to Bangladesh following the independence of the country.

But, on August 19 in 1999, more than 50 Indian nationals, backed by Indian Border Security Force (BSF) intruded into Bangladesh territory and occupied the land, driving away the Bangladeshis who had been living there for centuries.

The land remained under Indian occupation since then and no step was taken by the Bangladesh government for the recovery of the land.

UNBconnect... - Indians occupy vast Bangladesh land in Sylhet border