‘Process underway to send back BGP men to Myanmar’

Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal on Monday said process to send back 14 Border Guard Police (BGP) of Myanmar are underway who fled their country due to heavy gunfights there.

“They are now in the custody of Bangladesh Border Guard (BGB) and process is underway to send them back to Myanmar through foreign ministry, but none should come here,” he told the journalists at his ministry office at Bangladesh Secretariat, BSS reports.

The minister said they (Myanmar border police) entered into Bangladesh territory with weapons for self-defense. Recalling Bangladesh’s Liberation War in 1971, he said millions of Bangladeshi people went to India and took shelter there. So the border police of Myanmar entered into Bangladesh for shelter not for war.

Earlier, the BGP members took refuge in Bangladesh fleeing from their posts amid reports of heavy gunfights between the government troops and the rebel resistance fighters in the junta-run country.

“The 14 members of their BGP fled their country. They are now in our custody,” an official of the BGB told the reporters on Sunday at the southeastern Cox’s Bazar.

Another official, preferring anonymity, said the 14 BGP personnel crossed the border in predawn hours through the Ghum Dhum border along with their weapons and sought refuge to the BGB in Cox’s Bazar last night.

The minister said, “There is nothing to worry about it. They entered into our country for self-protection. They must be returned. We have detained them, will send them back to Myanmar again.”

Replying to a question about more Rohingyas will be allowed to enter again or not, he said, “Our decision is the same, there is a war going on at the border, none should come here now.

If the Rohingya people think that there is a war there, they will go somewhere, we will not allow anyone to enter at this moment.”