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The Border Security Force has lodged a First Information Report complaining of international war crime against Bangladesh Rifles for the 'inhuman' killing of 16 BSF jawans on April 18, office-in-charge of Mankachar police station Anil Deka said.
''On April 21, a couple of BSF officials filed an FIR against BDR at Mankachar police station for killing of 16 of their colleagues," Deka said.
Deka was apparently clueless as to what should be the course of action as in the last 50 years, not a single FIR of that nature had been filed.
The BSF FIR stated, among other things, that the BDR had killed 16 of its jawans 'near the Kakripara BOP' (about three km from Mankachar) on the Indo-Bangla border in the 'intervening nights of 18, 19 and 20 April, 2001'.
The FIR stated that only seven bodies could be identified while the others bore signs of 'mutilation and decomposition' and were beyond recognition.
The FIR requested that the matter be investigated. The police registered a case (42/2001) on the basis of the FIR under Sections 302 and 121 of the Indian Penal Code, relating to waging war against the state.
The BSF lodged the FIR after the BDR returned the mutilated bodies of the 16 jawans. The BSF followed up with two more statements over the next two days, the first saying that the other bodies had been also identified and the next stating that BDR had handed over two injured jawans along with another body.
''I am waiting for the statements of the two injured jawans to begin my investigation,'' Deka said while admitting that it would be difficult to undertake the whole operation as it involved national security.
This FIR and subsequent referral of the case to the lower courts of Dhubri could be the beginning of India's pursuit for justice in the International Court of Justice or International War Crime Tribunal.
According to BSF Inspector General V K Gaur, the two jawans were undergoing treatment. ''Besides, they are traumatized and would need time to recover. Doctors are not allowing them to talk,'' he said.
The Mankachar police are not the only ones investigating the case. The BSF and the Union home ministry have separately instituted probes into the incident.
Bangladesh is also said to have started investigations into India's allegations that the 16 jawans were 'tortured and brutally killed' by the BDR.
UNI
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