India takes it tough on illegal immigration - Politics Forum.org | PoFo

Wandering the information superhighway, he came upon the last refuge of civilization, PoFo, the only forum on the internet ...

Political issues and parties in India.

Moderator: PoFo Asia & Australasia Mods

Forum rules: No one-line posts please. This is an international political discussion forum moderated in English, so please post in English only. Thank you.
#15161836
India's shoot-to-kill policy on the Bangladesh border
Brad Adams, Sun 23 Jan 2011

Security officials openly admit that unarmed civilians trying to enter India illegally are being killed. Will the government act?
Do good fences make good neighbours? Not along the India-Bangladesh border. Here, India has almost finished building a 2,000km fence. Where once people on both sides were part of a greater Bengal, now India has put up a "keep out" sign to stop illegal immigration, smuggling and infiltration by anti-government militants.

This might seem unexceptional in a world increasingly hostile to migration. But to police the border, India's Border Security Force (BSF), has carried out a shoot-to-kill policy – even on unarmed local villagers. The toll has been huge. Over the past 10 years Indian security forces have killed almost 1,000 people, mostly Bangladeshis, turning the border area into a south Asian killing fields. No one has been prosecuted for any of these killings, in spite of evidence in many cases that makes it clear the killings were in cold blood against unarmed and defenceless local residents.

Shockingly, some Indian officials endorse shooting people who attempt to cross the border illegally, even if they are unarmed. Almost as shocking is the lack of interest in these killings by foreign governments who claim to be concerned with human rights. A single killing by US law enforcement along the Mexican border makes headlines. The killing of large numbers of villagers by Indian forces has been almost entirely ignored.

The violence is routine and arbitrary. Alauddin Biswas described to Human Rights Watch the killing of his 24-year-old nephew, who was suspected of cattle rustling, by Indian border guards in March 2010. "The BSF had shot him while he was lying on his back. They shot him in the forehead. If he was running away, he would have been shot in the back. They just killed him." The BSF claimed self-defence, but no weapons were recovered.
Nazrul Islam, a Bangladeshi, was luckier. "At around 3am we decided to cross the Indian border," he said. He was headed to India to smuggle cows back to Bangladesh. "As soon as the BSF saw us, they started firing without warning." Islam was shot in his arm, but survived.

India has the right to impose border controls. But India does not have the right to use lethal force except where strictly necessary to protect life. Yet some Indian officials openly admit that unarmed civilians are being killed. The head of the BSF, Raman Srivastava, says that people should not feel sorry for the victims, claiming that since these individuals were illegally entering Indian territory, often at night, they were "not innocent" and therefore were a legitimate target.
But there is some reason for hope. Under pressure, senior Indian officials have expressed revulsion at the behaviour of the BSF and have promised to send new orders to end the shoot-to-kill policy. They have committed to use nonviolent means to apprehend illegal border crossers or smugglers where they pose no risk to life. The question is whether this will be translated into action on the ground. Similar promises of "zero tolerance" for abuses have been made in Kashmir and elsewhere but have not been fulfilled.

As India's economy has grown and foreign investors have flocked in, its human rights record has largely flown under the radar in recent years. But India is a growing world power with increasing influence. It should understand that its behaviour will come under increasing scrutiny. Routinely shooting poor, unarmed villagers is not how the world's largest democracy should behave.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... ill-policy
(the above is just some excerpts taken from the article, in case the link stops working)


India is a Third World country with overpopulation and a lot of poor people, so these type of actions are not entirely surprising. They feel like they cannot take on anymore and have to put their foot down. Wealthier societies in Europe can afford to be much more compassionate.
#15250752
Sandzak wrote:Is not Bangladesh richer then India...

Bangladesh is even poorer than India. The reason it is poor is generally agreed to be its very high population density.

It was once part of India but they got cut off during the Great Partition (1947), since Hindus and Muslims did not get along very well together. Muslims kept trying to impose their religion and the Hindus could not tolerate it, eventually leading to violence and conflict, so it was agreed they would be better off living in separate countries.

Now there are Hindu nationalists in India who are afraid the Muslims might outbreed them in the near future, since the Muslims tend to be poorer and have more children. So there are efforts to try to keep more Muslims from entering India.
This is entirely about religion and has virtually nothing to do with ethnicity. The Hindus know what would happen if the Muslims ever took over. They can see what things are like in Pakistan.
#15250753
Patrickov wrote:They helped Bangladesh to gain independence but now this? How hypocritical.

That's kind of an ignorant comment. The only reason India helped Bangladesh gain independence was to break them away from Pakistan, which India considers their enemy. It was totally in the interest of India's national security to see the two Muslim territories on either side of their country politically divided.
India has a good political relationship with Bangladesh, but Indians are just not too keen on letting lots of poor Muslims enter their country. Although Bangladesh does have a large population, the territorial size is too small and (with the high levels of poverty) the economy too weak to pose any threat to India.
Israel-Palestinian War 2023

^ His lies are creative at least, I'll give him th[…]

Yes, because the Palestinian resistance have a his[…]

Russia-Ukraine War 2022

^ I shared the Sachs and Meirsheimer videos in her[…]

Hmmm, it the Ukraine aid package is all over mains[…]