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Sukhendu Bhattacharya in Mancachar
An uneasy calm prevails on the India-Bangladesh border, a day after paramilitary forces on both sides agreed to a ceasefire in the wake of two days of firing exchanges that left 16 Border Security Force personnel dead.
There has been no exchange of fire between the BSF and the Bangladesh Rifles after midnight in Boraibari, Dhubri Deputy Commissioner Gayatri Baruah said. But residents of nearly 20 villages who had fled have not returned.
The two sides remained engaged in sporadic exchanges of fire along the border in Boraibari area till midnight even after an agreement was reached at a flag meeting of the BSF and BDR to stop the hostilities and maintain status quo, sources in Mancachar said.
But on Friday the border at Boraibari in Assam and Pyrdiwah in Meghalaya has been quiet, BSF Additional Director General M K Singh told the Press Trust of India in New Delhi.
In Pyrdiwah, where BSF men retook possession of their observatory post from the BDR after three days of occupying the village, panic-stricken villagers have not yet returned to their homes.
BSF Director General Gurbachan Jagat flew to the border areas to see the situation for himself.
Jagat, who is expected to return to New Delhi on Saturday, will submit a report to the government analysing the events that led to the worst-ever border clashes between the neighbours in the last three decades.
Reports from Dhaka said of the 11 bodies of BSF personnel which the BDR claims to have collected on Wednesday after the fighting, the post-mortem of only five had been done and these would be handed over to the Indian side on Friday. The bodies of the other six personnel will be handed over later after their post-mortem examinations.
Two injured BSF personnel were being treated in hospital in Dhaka.
Bangladesh Foreign Secretary Syed Moazzem Ali said the BDR withdrew from Pyrdiwah and called off extra troops from the border after the Indian side dismantled the road being built nearby in a disputed area.
But official sources said the exodus from Mancachar in Assam continues with people taking shelter in the West Garo Hills district of Meghalaya where the local authorities have set up three camps at Sulguri, Jholgaon and Monabari.
Altogether 30 villages in Dhubri district were affected by the BDR shelling, with the worst hit being Shahapara, Thakurianbari, Boraibari and Karipara.
Baruah said the villagers were terrified of returning to their homes and were flocking in large numbers to nearby towns in Assam and Meghalaya.
PTI
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