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Bangladesh agrees to multiple visas for Indians
Bangladesh agreed to allow double entry and exit visas for Indian citizens transiting through any int'l airports or land ports.
Bangladesh agreed to allow double entry and exit visas for Indian citizens transiting through any international airports or land ports.
After the two-day home secretary level talks ended here, Bangladesh Home Secretary Omar Faruque announced at a joint press conference that his country had made the provision as a reciprocal action requested by India.
India is already granting double entry and exit visas to Bangladeshi citizens through any international airport or land port.
The new provision of visas would widen the scope for Indian citizens to travel to Indian states through Bangladesh.
Dhaka and New Delhi reached a consensus on combating cross-border terrorism through a simultaneous operation along their respective borders, especially to stop drug-smuggling, human-trafficking and trespassing of criminals.
"We've agreed for a coordinated patrolling along the borders," said Indian Home Secretary Dhirendra Singh at the briefing.
"Border guards - Bangladesh Rifles and India's Border Security Force — will coordinate to stop cross border crimes."
"Both sides agreed that better and more effective border policing is necessary to prevent trafficking and movement across the border without proper and legal documents," a joint statement said.
Senior border officials are scheduled to meet in New Delhi on Sep 29.
"We know we have porous borders and border guards from each country will check the border from their territory," the Bangladesh home secretary said.
Both the secretaries said they had moved forward to minimise differences after the two-day meeting and agreed to have regular meetings to thrash out matters.
"We'll sit again in January or February next," Faruque said adding, "We've agreed to have telephonic dialogues regularly to address any issues".
On the issue of exchanging lists of terrorists' camps, both the secretaries said they had discussed the matter and understood each other's perception and views and agreed "to work together closely".
Both the neighbours have long been accusing each other of harbouring terrorists against their countries.
The meeting discussed an extradition treaty between the two countries proposed by India.
"The Bangladesh side agreed to examine the proposal put forward by India," Faruque said.
The Indian team agreed to Bangladesh's request for starting work on completing the demarcation of the remaining 6.5 km of the land boundary - a major development since Bangladesh struck a deal on enclaves during former Indian prime minister P V Narasimha Rao's government in 1993.
"It's a legal process and after notification of the boundary we consider the issue on a package deal basis," Dhirendra Singh said.
"We requested them to solve the problem as a package together that includes demarcation of 6.5 km of the land boundary, exchange of enclaves as well as adverse possession of land," Faruque said.
