Cattle smuggled from India harming economy of Bangladesh: BGB

Agencies

July 15, 2017

Shillong, Jul 15: Cattle smuggled from India is harming the economy of Bangladesh, a senior officer of Border Guards of Bangladesh said today and formally requested the Border Security Force (BSF) to stop it.

"Actually it (cattle smuggling is harming our economy. If it doesn’t come from India then our dairy farmers can go up and we can take care of ourselves," BGB Region Commander Addl Director General Md Zahid Hasan told reporters here.

He said, "We have requested BSF to stop smuggling and a lot of other related issues can be resolved by that."

The BGB officer who attended the four-day BSF-BGB Border Coordination Conference here also admitted that cattle smuggling was one of the agendas of the conference.

Stating that cattle all by itself cannot walk across the border, Hasan said, "We have requested that such kind of smuggling be stopped because these cattle are coming from deep inside from within India and from West of India."

The BGB region commander and the Meghalaya frontier BSF IG P K Dubey also met Meghalaya's Director General of Police S B Singh and discussed on the issue of cattle smuggling and cross border crimes.

"Action plan has been drawn on intelligence sharing on real time basis on criminal activities on either side of the border, both the forces will promptly act," Hasan said.

The BGB commander has also raised the issue of firing by BSF personnel on Bangladesh nationals.

"There are few in our areas of concern which we have discussed. Some of the incidents categorically were brought before the discussion. We have discussed the issue and we have agreed on certain issues on that and hopefully that will come down to zero," he said.

The Meghalaya Frontier BSF IG P K Dubey said border related issues were discussed in details and efforts have been taken to curb trans-border crimes.

"Our main concerns were killing of innocent Bangladeshi nationals and smuggling of drugs, and also to find out the modalities to build our relationships," he said.

He also said, "We have expressed zero tolerance for smuggling of fire arms and explosives, human trafficking and drugs. We have agreed to enhance the confidence building measures between both the forces on the ground."

The BSF-BGB conference takes place twice a year and the last one was held in Sylhet in November.

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Spain blocks arms ship from India to Israel amid ongoing Gaza genocide

News Network

May 18,2024

In a humanitarian move, Spain has refused entry to a ship carrying arms from India’s Chennai to Israel to dock at one of its ports, its Foreign Minister José Manuel Albares has said.

The Denmark-flagged cargo ship Marianne Danica sailed from Chennai on April 8 when people in Gaza were observing Ramadan fasting, and was headed to the port of Haifa in Israel, according to maritime tracking portals and Spanish media.

Spain has been extremely critical of the rising civilian casualties due to the Israeli offensive in Gaza and, along with Belgium, has suspended arms exports licenses to Tel Aviv.

Spokesperson of the Ministry of External Affairs Randhir Jaiswal, at the weekly press conference, only said that they have seen the report of the ship and will revert with more information.

Meanwhile, a source said, “Investigation will reveal if the items on board were cleared for export and if the end user is the same as reported by The Guardian because there are items that are not banned for exports.”

Speaking to reporters in Brussels on Thursday on the issue, Mr. Albares had said, “This is the first time we have done this because it is the first time we have detected a ship carrying a shipment of arms to Israel that wants to call at a Spanish port.”

“This will be a consistent policy with any ship carrying arms to Israel that wants to call at Spanish ports. The Foreign Ministry will systematically reject such stopovers for one obvious reason: the Middle East does not need more weapons, it needs more peace,” he stated.

The ship was carrying 27 tonnes of explosives according to local reports. It was to make a port call at Cartegena in Spain.
In February, Mr. Albares said that they had suspended arms export licences to Israel since October 7, which he said made them “realise” the importance of a “fair and lasting solution” to the Palestinian cause.

The incident comes amid an ongoing row between Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez’s party and his coalition partners over another ship, Borkum, that was due to dock at Cartegena port on Friday over allegations that it was carrying arms meant for Israel. However, the Spanish government has said that the arms it is ferrying are meant for the Czech Republic.

Belgium had suspended two arms export licences to Israel.

“We welcome the decision of the Spanish government to deny the transit authorisation of the vessel Marianne Danica, in accordance with Tratado (treaty) on Arms Trade and Spanish law,” Amnesty International Spain said on social media platform ‘X’.

The timing also coincides with the Israeli ground offensive inside Rafah. According to the UN Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA) at least 6,30,000 Palestinians have been forced out of Rafah since the launch of the incursion on May 7.

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