BGB's intervention halts temple construction in Assam; resolved in flag meeting
The cause of the confusion was a black-coloured plastic cover near the site of a temple re-construction along the international border
The construction of a temple in Assam's Sribhumi district was temporarily halted after an intervention of the Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB) on Thursday. However, the officials of Sribhumi district administration said that it was merely a matter of confusion, and it was resolved after discussions.
The district commissioner of Sribhumi, Pradip Kumar Dwivedi on Friday told HT that the cause of the confusion was a black-coloured plastic cover near the site of a temple re-construction along the international border.
"The re-construction of a Manasa temple near the border was happening and the workers created a small tent there which attracted the BGB. Due to BGB's intervention, the construction was halted for a while and after a flag-meeting in the evening, the confusion was cleared," he said.
Sribhumi district (formerly Karimganj) shares nearly 95-kilometres of border with Bangladesh and around 40-kilometres of it is riverine border, which includes a large area near Sribhumi town.
On Thursday afternoon, a team of BGB from Bangladesh's Sylhet division reportedly crossed the riverine border point and came to the Indian side where the construction was happening. They also wrote a letter to the BSF and asked the workers to stop their activities.
A senior official of the Border Security Force (BSF) said that it was not an unusual attempt and border security forces of both the countries keep talking to each other.
"The river is the border here, so half of it is covered by BGB and half by us. We keep enquiring about each other's sides whenever we see anything unusual. Yesterday, they wanted to talk about the construction on the Indian side and we cleared the confusion by discussions," he said.
The officer said that they went to the middle of river Kushiyara after showing signals of flag-meeting and the BGB responded to it, the matter was discussed there.
"This will be wrong to say that the BGB entered Indian territory, they can come to the 150 metres area if they want to know something, we too go to that side sometimes and they co-operate," he added.
The officials of the Assam police in Sribhumi district administration said that the temple is located at the edge of Kushiyara river and an amount of ₹3 lakhs was sanctioned by the government for its reconstruction.
Superintendent of police (SP) of Sribhumi district, Partha Pratim Das said that some half-baked information was shared regarding the matter. "These discussions are very common. Some half-baked information was shared regarding it but now things are well," he said.
Earlier this week, thousands of locals from Assam's Barak Valley gathered near India-Bangladesh international border in Sribhumi to protest against the alleged attacks on Hindus in Bangladesh.
During the protest, police and BSF were attacked at one point and they lathi charged on the protesters resulting in severe injuries on many.