THE Indian Border Security Force (BSF) has decided to revise the Felani Khatun murder trial, the Indian High Commissioner to Bangladesh told the media on September 13. This decision has come a week after a special BSF court had cleared the lone accused, Constable Amiya Ghosh, of the charge brought against him. It is worthwhile to note that a General Security Force Court (GSFC) that held the trial against the BSF jawan for allegedly killing Felani Khatun pronounced him not guilty on September 6.
It is no doubt a good piece of news for the bereaved family members of Felani. Her parents and relatives will naturally want to see justice done to their beloved child who became the victim of mindless act of shooting by a BSF member. Along with her parents and close relatives, near and dear ones of hundreds of other victims of BSF atrocities at the Bangladesh-India border will also wait with their fingers crossed to see that due process of law is finally started to bring to light what happened on the fateful day of January 7, 2011 at the Anantapur border point at Phulbari upazila in Kurigram. That is because the very recognition of the fact that what this hapless Bangladeshi girl was subjected to was unjust, inhuman and outrageous will also vindicate that other Bangladeshis who perished under similar circumstances at the Bangladesh-India border had also been victims of wanton killing.
The irony is that the credit, if any, for even considering that the case of Felani, only a single instance of a hundreds of other similar casualties of senseless brutality along the international border between Bangladesh and India, at least merits a compassionate look, goes not to the government of the country of which the victim was a citizen. On the contrary, it is the BSF, the alien organisation behind the killing of the Bangladeshi girl, has decided to take the matter seriously.
And what is commendable at this point about the case is that the issue of border killings is now being treated with some seriousness by either of the governments, an attitude that was lacking in the past.
Interestingly, after the GSFC’s judgment was disclosed, foreign minister Dipu Moni admitted to the press that it (Felani’s) was a tragic murder, adding that, her government had sought justice and would appeal against it if they did not get justice.
One would like to be reassured from our foreign minister’s statement. We say this because it appears to be a change of heart on the government’s part. For in the past, there were instances when government leaders would rather get annoyed if reports of any torture or killing of Bangladeshis by BSF members were brought to their notice. We may recall what LGRD minister Syed Ashraf ‘s view was on the issue. “The state is not too much concerned about it. It is not right that the state shall focus only on these issues, leaving aside all other businesses,” he told reporters on January 21, 2012 when they wanted to know from him if torture and killing of Bangladeshis at the border were provocative.
So we feel reassured that that the government’s attitude towards border killings has after all changed.
Felani appears to be the luckiest of all the ignored and forgotten Bangladeshis so far killed in BSF firings at the border. Through her death she has been able to vindicate the fact that what the BSF has been doing at the border in the name of containing trespassing of terrorists, smugglers and illegal immigrants into Indian territory is unjust, unfair and inhuman. Even if those people had committed a wrong of trespassing, they deserved to be punished through a legal process and not through the indiscriminate use of gun at a border between two friendly countries and who are not at war with each other.
The revised trial of the Felani murder case should pave the way for looking into a large number of other killings of Bangladeshis at the border in a similar light. Aghast at the unabated murder of their fellow people at the Bangladesh-India border, we want the government to come out of its lackadaisical attitude on the issue and take a proactive rather than a reactive response to such bloody border incidents in the future. In a similar vein, it is also expected that the government would place a list of all the cases of border killing till date to the Indian authorities yo seek justice for those victims. The ongoing Directors-General level BGB-BSF conference in Dhaka can well be used to start the process.
It is no doubt a good piece of news for the bereaved family members of Felani. Her parents and relatives will naturally want to see justice done to their beloved child who became the victim of mindless act of shooting by a BSF member. Along with her parents and close relatives, near and dear ones of hundreds of other victims of BSF atrocities at the Bangladesh-India border will also wait with their fingers crossed to see that due process of law is finally started to bring to light what happened on the fateful day of January 7, 2011 at the Anantapur border point at Phulbari upazila in Kurigram. That is because the very recognition of the fact that what this hapless Bangladeshi girl was subjected to was unjust, inhuman and outrageous will also vindicate that other Bangladeshis who perished under similar circumstances at the Bangladesh-India border had also been victims of wanton killing.
The irony is that the credit, if any, for even considering that the case of Felani, only a single instance of a hundreds of other similar casualties of senseless brutality along the international border between Bangladesh and India, at least merits a compassionate look, goes not to the government of the country of which the victim was a citizen. On the contrary, it is the BSF, the alien organisation behind the killing of the Bangladeshi girl, has decided to take the matter seriously.
And what is commendable at this point about the case is that the issue of border killings is now being treated with some seriousness by either of the governments, an attitude that was lacking in the past.
Interestingly, after the GSFC’s judgment was disclosed, foreign minister Dipu Moni admitted to the press that it (Felani’s) was a tragic murder, adding that, her government had sought justice and would appeal against it if they did not get justice.
One would like to be reassured from our foreign minister’s statement. We say this because it appears to be a change of heart on the government’s part. For in the past, there were instances when government leaders would rather get annoyed if reports of any torture or killing of Bangladeshis by BSF members were brought to their notice. We may recall what LGRD minister Syed Ashraf ‘s view was on the issue. “The state is not too much concerned about it. It is not right that the state shall focus only on these issues, leaving aside all other businesses,” he told reporters on January 21, 2012 when they wanted to know from him if torture and killing of Bangladeshis at the border were provocative.
So we feel reassured that that the government’s attitude towards border killings has after all changed.
Felani appears to be the luckiest of all the ignored and forgotten Bangladeshis so far killed in BSF firings at the border. Through her death she has been able to vindicate the fact that what the BSF has been doing at the border in the name of containing trespassing of terrorists, smugglers and illegal immigrants into Indian territory is unjust, unfair and inhuman. Even if those people had committed a wrong of trespassing, they deserved to be punished through a legal process and not through the indiscriminate use of gun at a border between two friendly countries and who are not at war with each other.
The revised trial of the Felani murder case should pave the way for looking into a large number of other killings of Bangladeshis at the border in a similar light. Aghast at the unabated murder of their fellow people at the Bangladesh-India border, we want the government to come out of its lackadaisical attitude on the issue and take a proactive rather than a reactive response to such bloody border incidents in the future. In a similar vein, it is also expected that the government would place a list of all the cases of border killing till date to the Indian authorities yo seek justice for those victims. The ongoing Directors-General level BGB-BSF conference in Dhaka can well be used to start the process.
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