India’s Border Security Force has issued a 10-day ‘Ops Alert’, effective from January 22, and will exercise the alert along the India-Bangladesh border to tighten security during India’s 76th Republic Day celebrations.
India’s 76th Republic Day celebrations will be held on January 26.
The tightened security would be continued from January 22 to January 31 marking the republic day and owing to the changed scenario in Bangladesh, according to an anandabazar.com report published on Friday.
‘The Ops Alert commenced across all its field formations along the 4,096-kilometre border to ensure heightened security and strengthened border outposts,’ said a Headquarters Special DG BSF (EC), Kolkata release issued on Thursday and shared by the Indian media.
The official release also said that during the period of ‘Ops Alert’ exercise, patrolling and other domination duties along the India-Bangladesh border would be intensified.
India issued the ‘Ops Alert’ at a time when tensions between Bangladesh and India have continued over border-related issues.
Tensions along the Bangladesh-India border have been continuing since the last week of December 2024 as the Border Guard Bangladesh and local people had protested against the BSF’s efforts to construct barbed wire fences at five points along the border in Chapainawabganj, Naogaon and Lalmonirhat.
The BSF Friday morning detained a Bangladeshi farmer allegedly from 100 yards inside Bangladesh from the border pillar 321/1 S at Bitnagar of Dharmapur union at Biral upazila in Dinajpur district and returned him six hours later.
Later, local people detained an Indian national Narayn Chandra,54, while working in the Indian side of the International border under the Kushmandi police station in Dakshin Dinajpur district of India and brought him to the Bangladesh side and handed him over to the BGB Anayetpur border outpost, said the BGB officials.
BGB 42 Battalion commanding officer Lieutenant Colonel Ahsanul Islam said that both the detainees of the two countries were exchanged following a BGB-BSF flag meeting.
Indian villagers on January 18 clashed with Bangladeshis over harvesting crops on the no man’s land, leaving three people injured and erupting a fresh tension along the Chowka border in Chapainawabganj.
Earlier on January 8, tension erupted along Chowka border at Shibganj upazila in the district as the BSF began constructing fences along the border despite repeated objections from the BGB.
On January 12, the foreign ministry summoned the Indian high commissioner to Bangladesh, Pranay Verma, and expressed concern over the construction of barbed wire fences and protested at the recent killing of a Bangladeshi national by the Indian BSF on the border.