Border guards of India, B'desh exchange sweets on Diwali

Agartala/Guwahati, Oct 31 (IANS) On the occasion of Diwali, sweets were exchanged on Thursday between the troops of Border Security Force (BSF) and Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB), all along the border with Bangladesh, officials said.

A spokesman of the BSF's Mizoram and Cachar Frontier said that like in previous years, on the occasion of Diwali, sweets were exchanged between BSF and BGB, all along the border with Bangladesh.

Sweets were exchanged between the two border guarding forces in many bordering locations along Assam and Mizoram, he added.

A spokesman of the Tripura Frontier of BSF said that on the occasion of Diwali, sweets were exchanged between the two paramilitary forces in around 100 locations two days ago.

After the collapse of the Awami League government led by former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on August 5, this is the first time the BSF and the BGB exchanged sweets on the occasion of Diwali.

The border guarding forces of the two neighbouring countries on the occasions of all important festivities have been exchanging sweets for the past several decades.

Meanwhile, the Director General-level border talks between BSF and BGB, scheduled to be held in Delhi between November 18 and 22, have been postponed after a change in plan by the Home Ministry of the neighbouring country.

Sources said that the five-daylong 55th edition bi-annual talks led by the Chiefs of BSF and BGB were to be held in Delhi and it would be the first such high-level meeting after the collapse of the Hasina government on August 5.

The 54th edition of Director-General (DG) level talks between BSF and BGB were held in Dhaka in March.

Such high-level meetings discussed border management, border crimes, illegal cross-border movements and various activities, and mutual coordination in sharing real-time intelligence between the two forces besides the construction of various border infrastructures, the sources said.

The BSF guards the 4,096-km India-Bangladesh border with five states -- West Bengal, Assam, Tripura, Meghalaya and Mizoram.

The DG-level annual border talks started in 1975 and continued till 1992.

The meet has been bi-annual since 1993 with either side alternatively going to the respective national capitals of India (New Delhi) and Bangladesh (Dhaka), the sources added.

--IANS

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