Bid to check cross border crime

Staff Correspondent

Shillong, January 13: The District Magistrates and Deputy Commissioners of border districts of Meghalaya and Northern Bangladesh have resolved to check cross border crimes by agreeing to hold review meetings on border crimes every month in each district.  This decision was taken during the concluding day of the bi–lateral conference between District Magistrates and Deputy Commissioners of border districts of Meghalaya and Bangladesh here.

The officials also agreed to share the phone numbers, emails and other mode of correspondence between the DMs and SPs for quick information and swift ground action. Head of the Indian delegation and Deputy Commissioner of East Khasi Hills, Sanjay Goyal said, “The special review meetings will look into all cases related to border crimes and then share those with their respective counterparts for necessary action”.

 Stating that the new mechanism will drastically reduce crimil activities along the Indo–Bangladesh border, Goyal referred to the local police knowledge about the habitual offenders and the area of operation. “If we share the information on the area of occurrence, the local police can easily profile and b them to prevent future occurrence,” stated the leader of the Indian delegation.

Goyal said that the Meghalaya Police has a list of the Bangladesh gangs operating in the Indo–Bangladesh border and the SPs will submit it to their Bangladesh counterparts as part of the enhanced co–operation to check cross border crime. Besides, the meeting also agreed to sensitize the border population on cross border crime.    

The issue of repatriating the convicts was another focal point where both sides agreed to send the information in advance on the ‘about–to–be–released’ Indian or Bangladesh tiols for verification and smooth repatriation. Goyal said that there are many cases of jailed Bangladesh tiols in the state while the Bangladesh representatives also claimed that there are few cases of Indian tiols from Meghalaya languishing in Bangladesh jail.

The two teams also agreed to send a proposal to the higher–ups in their respective government to have a joint border area committee that will include district civil officials, police, customs and rcotics personnel in order to ease the security forces from the burden of border magement. They mooted the idea of forming a joint border haat committee that will take care of the market needs in terms of money exchange, sanitation and others. The Indian and Bangladesh official also agreed to propose the enhancement of the number of vendors from 25 to 50 in the border haats and to enlarge the area of operations from the present 5 km radius to 10 km radius.