It'll curb border crimes, give rights to enclave people

The implementation of the Land Boundary Agreement (LBA) between Bangladesh and India will improve border management and reduce crimes along the border, apart from providing long-awaited citizenship rights and privileges to the enclave inhabitants of the two countries.

Speakers made the observations at a seminar on "Land Boundary Agreement: Expectations and Achievements", organised by Bangladesh-India Friendship Society at the Institution of Diploma Engineers in the capital yesterday.

"...we will now be able to free the inhabitants from poverty and deprivation and give them what they deserve as citizens of either country," said Foreign Minister AH Mahmood Ali. "Resolution of the land boundary issue will also have positive impacts on some other related areas such as border management," he said, adding that both governments were now working on the modalities of implementing the LBA and its protocol.

Indian High Commissioner to Bangladesh Pankaj Saran said, "It will help our border guards and forces.... It will also certainly help to reduce criminal and illegal activities, which were taking place in the absence of implementation of this agreement."

The LBA deals with the demarcation of a 6.1km un-demarcated land boundary between Bangladesh and India and exchange of 162 enclaves and over 5,000 acres of adversely possessed land.

The problem arose after the 1947 partition of the Indian subcontinent into India and Pakistan, which included Bangladesh then.

The LBA was signed in 1974 to solve the problem with Bangladesh ratifying it within six months, but it took India 41 years to ratify the deal, on May 7, 2015.