Download The video that was shown on Indian television last month, shows a group of Indian border guards stripping and then brutally torturing a suspected Bangladeshi cow smuggler.
Eight Indian Border Security Force (BSF) guards have been suspended in connection over the torture, which the Indian authorities have called a ‘despicable’ incident.
But human rights groups say the case is far from an isolated one.
As Shaikh Azizur Rahman reports the Bangladeshi-Indian border has become one of the world’s deadliest divides.
He has this report from from Murshidabad district in West Bengal.
Karnabala Debi says her 15-year old son was shot dead by an Indian border security guard or BSF.
She says, the guard believed her son knew where a wanted cattle smuggler was hiding.
When her son told them he didn’t have any information—she believes that he was shot dead.
Three years on and she is too frightened to file a case with the police.
“They killed my innocent son. Yet I have not gone to the court against them because we fear of retaliation by the BSF. They can come and attack us again if we demand action against them. We are very poor. We have turned mad at the loss of our innocent son. We don’t know where to go or what to do seeking justice.”
According to rights groups the India-Bangladeshi border has become one of the world’s deadiest divides.
The US based rights group Human Rights Watch says over the last ten years more than 1,000 people have been killed—most of them from Bangladesh.
Gopen Sharma heads the local wing of the rights group MASUM which works with Human rights watch.
“It’s easier for the BSF to target the Bangladeshis because nobody is lodging complaint in India when an illegally entering Bangladeshi goes missing in India. In such situation it is very easy for the BSF to kill the Bangladeshis and secretly bury their bodies inside Indian territory.”
The Indian authorities claim the people killed are illegal cattle smugglers or involved in other trans-border crimes.
Every year more than a million Indian cows are smuggled across the border and villagers on both sides have been found to be involved in it.
Smugglers say they have to bribe the Indian guards to let them pass.
Indian illegal cattle trader Khalek Shaikh says the border guards were not happy with the bribe he offered them…so he was punished.
“Seven or eight BSF men beat me badly with iron rod. I got severe injuries on my head and leg. I still cannot walk or work properly. I still did not lodge any complaint.They have guns in their hand. They have the power. We are poor villagers. We cannot stand against them. If I try to raise any voice or go to court on my own, they will raid my house and shoot me dead. We are helpless. We are afraid of our lives. So I kept quiet despite facing unlawful torture by the BSF.”
Although Shaikh is Indian he too was too frightened of the border guards to file a complaint.
Former head of the Criminal Investigation Department of the West Bengal Police, Pratibhanath Saha says, villagers fear relatiation.
“Villagers do not want to come in conflict with the local BSF guards. Most of the villagers in such cases live close to the border where BSF is active. If they get angry, the BSF men can falsely entangle the villagers in various smuggling cases. They can also harass the villagers in many other ways. So, the villagers avoid to report to the police against the BSF.”
Saha says part of the problem is that many junior BSF commanders on the border are corrupt.
“It’s a fact that many local commanders are often found in league with the guards on the border outposts. If these supervisors supervise the outposts properly and take action I think such incidents of atrocities can be checked. These commanders do not take action because they are in league with the guards on the border and they definitely get their cuts of bribe from the guards. That’s why the commanders don’t take action.”
The rights group MASUM is fighting on behalf of the victims in the courts.
“Whenever we find that BSF has tortured, abused or killed anyone in this state, we take action. We do our investigation in all cases, document them, and then we move the court. Now we are fighting more than two hundred cases of BSF brutalities in West Bengal.”
So far none of the cases have been successful.
35-year old Khalil Shaikh’s family say he died after being heavily tortured by Indian border guards three months ago.
Mozifa Bibi, Shaikhs’s sister-in-law had the chance to see his body before being buried.
“The BSF guards beat him mercilessly. All sides of his body bore marks of beatings. They broke his hands and legs. His fingers were crushed. There was sign of torture even on his testicle- it was badly swollen, we found. He must have gone through ruthless torture for hours before he died.”
They are still waiting for a post mortem report from the police but the family is planning on fighting for justice with the support of the local rights group, Masum.
Maharam Bibi is Shaikh’s mother.
“If BSF guards found that my son had done something illegal, they could have arrested and sent him to jail. After spending his term in the jail he would have returned to us alive. They did not do that. They kept beating him until he died. They did it utterly wrong. I want justice.”
Rights activist Gopen Sharma says nothing will change unless the Indian government comes under more international pressure.
“On the border BSF has been committing such crime just because they are going unpunished. Legal action must be taken against the guilty BSF men. There should be more international pressure so that Indian authorities take action to prosecute the border guards. They are killing people brutally. It’s intolerable, it’s inhuman.”
The Indian Border Security Force was contacted for their response to these allegations but they were unavailable to speak to Asia Calling. Following the public release of the video showing a Bangladeshi cattle smuggler being tortured by Indian guards, the Indian finance minister, who comes from the border region, admitted that such incidents were common.
