By Our Reporter
SHILLONG: Despite the opposition from the local population residing along the international border including the NGOs to the boundary agreement which India had signed with Bangladesh last year, Union Minister of State (MoS) for Home Affairs, Ramachandran Mullappally, on Friday stated that the boundary agreement between the two countries would be ratified in Parliament soon.
“We would ratify the boundary agreement in the Parliament very soon. Since we presently have a friendly government in Bangladesh we were able to resolve the boundary crisis,” Ramachandran told reporters during his visit to the border village of Dawki on Friday.
Incidentally, the Union MoS, who was apparently unaware of the present status of the border fencing issue, raised a few eyebrows when he claimed that the international boundary between India and Bangladesh is ‘well demarcated’.
“The demarcation of the boundary is already there,” he claimed.
Acting on inputs provided by the Border Security Force (BSF), Ramachandran seemed to have made up his mind that the local people residing along the international border were not opposed to the border fencing work.
The Union MoS’s proposed tour to the border areas of Meghalaya was initially planned in such a way so that he could have a first-hand account of the problems being faced by people residing along the international border.
However, Ramachandran did not even visit the border but stayed put at a BSF camp in Dawki where he held discussions with BSF officials and later, had a brief chat with few selected villagers from the border. The talks with the villagers, incidentally, did not touch the subject of the people’s opposition to the Indo-Bangla land swap deal.
It may be mentioned that many organizations and traditional heads including land owners, under the banner of the Coordination Committee on International Border (CCIB) are strongly opposed to the border fencing work since India and Bangladesh are yet to properly demarcate the international boundary.
Strangely, no invitation was extended to the CCIB for an audience with the Union MoS.
When contacted, CCIB spokesman GH Kharshanlor said, “We are not aware of the visit of the Union Minister of State. We would have wanted to meet him to apprise him of our opposition to the border fencing work, but no invitation was extended to us.”