BSF halts ‘unauthorised’ bunker building near Bangladesh border
BSF personnel of Eastern Command, Kolkata revealed the construction. This happened last night as it started at Bangladeshi end on Friday
The India’s Border Security Force (BSF) today intervened in second straight day for alleged building an ‘illegal bunker’ inside 150 meters on its international border and forced BGB to dismantle, amidst severe tensions at Bangladesh frontier.
BSF officials at Kolkata’s Eastern Command said they noticed the construction, which started Friday night on Bangladesh’s side, during a patrol. This follows Friday’s intervention when BSF stopped BGB from building a “sentry bunker” in the Dahagram Angarpota area along the North Bengal frontier.
“On February 1, a team of BSF sector Kishanganj observed some fortification work being carried out by Bangladesh nationals along the embankment of Kulik River within 150 yards of zero line,” a senior official said. The area falls under BGB’s Govindpur border outpost.
Following BSF’s objections during a flag meeting, BGB personnel agreed to halt construction. “Joint India-Bangladesh guidelines prohibit defence related constructions within 150 yards of International Boundary, but BGB continued such work despite existing guidelines,” the official added.
According to officials, over the past month, BSF has been seeing BGB personnel constructing bunkers beyond the 150-yard limit and equipping their forces with lethal and non-lethal arms. The constructions outside the restricted zone did not elicit any protest.
(Read More: 3rd Edition of the National Security Dialogue 2025)
The latest confrontation comes amid growing tensions between the two border forces since Bangladesh’s regime change last August. The situation escalated last month when Indian and Bangladeshi villagers clashed in Malda, North Bengal, over BSF’s attempts to construct a border fence, leading to stone-pelting incidents.
Border friction reflects broader challenges in bilateral relations since former Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina fled to India on August 5 amid political turmoil. Under the previous government, many of India’s current construction projects had received approval, but the new administration under caretaker Prime Minister Muhammad Yunus has taken a different stance.
The border tensions started building up in August when BGB began opposing BSF construction at multiple previously approved sites along the 4,156-kilometer shared border.
Recent months have seen confrontations involving local populations, allegations of crop theft, and social media propaganda, marking a shift from typical border management issues to community-level conflicts.
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