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10<br />
SUNDAY, JULY <strong>23</strong>, <strong>2017</strong><br />
DT<br />
News<br />
Indo-Bangla border changes due<br />
to continuous river erosion<br />
• Nuruchsafa Manik,<br />
Khagrachhari<br />
SPECIAL <br />
The Indo-Bangla border has been<br />
changing due to continuous river<br />
erosion caused by the incessant<br />
monsoon rain in Khagrachari.<br />
Around eight hectares of land<br />
surrounding the Feni river in Khagrachari’s<br />
Matiranga upazila. Hundreds<br />
of Bangali settler families are<br />
living in fear in these areas.<br />
In the recent years, river erosion<br />
has become more intense due to<br />
lack of governance, locals claim.<br />
However, the Bangladesh Water<br />
Development Board (BWDB) have<br />
evaded the matter by saying that<br />
they were unable to monitor the<br />
area due to lack of road communication.<br />
Besides patrolling the area, the<br />
Bangladesh Border Guards (BGB)<br />
has been using their own funds<br />
and working with the locals to prevent<br />
the situation. They have been<br />
continuously trying to stop the<br />
river erosion by dumping concrete<br />
blocks and sacks of sand.<br />
Although India has demarcated<br />
their boundary with barbed wires,<br />
Bangladesh has yet made any such<br />
effort. Thus, in some of the areas,<br />
the river has been considered as<br />
international maritime boundary.<br />
Bangladesh is losing its land mass<br />
every year due to the lack of river<br />
governance, whereas new shoals<br />
are emerging at the Indian side.<br />
BGB 40 Battalion Commanding<br />
Officer Lt Col Md Khalid Ahmed<br />
said that BGB has taken the responsibility<br />
of protecting 40km of<br />
the Indo-Bangla border areas. He<br />
added: “39 international boundary<br />
markers have completely submerged<br />
and 16 of them are now in<br />
the river. We have collected these<br />
information by conducting a joint<br />
survey with India and then notified<br />
the authorities concerned. Bangladesh<br />
will be in a crisis without adequate<br />
river governance.”<br />
BWDB Deputy Divisional Engineer<br />
(Khagrachari office), Md Nurul<br />
Absar Azad, said: “The government<br />
has taken the initiative for river<br />
governance in order to stop the<br />
erosion of rivers at the border. On<br />
<strong>July</strong> 11, after a discussion chaired<br />
Many agricultural lands have been affected by the erosion of Feni river<br />
BGB jawans are helping the locals to dump concrete blocks to prevent the land from the river erosion of Feni DHAKA TRIBUNE<br />
DHAKA TRIBUNE<br />
by the prime minister, a project has<br />
been approved regarding this matter.<br />
The construction of this project<br />
will start in the next dry season.”<br />
Hundreds of crops and agricultural<br />
lands in Matiranga are now in<br />
crisis.<br />
Whereas, to avoid any such a predicament<br />
India has created a concrete<br />
dam around the bank of Feni<br />
in Tripura state’s Amarpur. To ensure<br />
the movement of Border Security<br />
Force (BSF), they have also constructed<br />
roads in the border area.<br />
In contrast, Bangladesh has not<br />
made similar efforts which rendered<br />
much of its land mass to go<br />
under the river.<br />
A local from Bornal Amtoli village,<br />
Chinglaprot Marma, said that<br />
he has lost around 0.4 hectares<br />
of land due to river erosion in the<br />
past few years. His entire family<br />
depended on what they earned by<br />
cultivating crops on this land.<br />
Another local, Komol Bikash<br />
Chakma, said: “Twenty days ago, I<br />
took a piece of land on lease for cultivating<br />
crops from a local, Yusuf<br />
Mia. Within a few days of sowing<br />
the seeds, around 0.64 hectares of<br />
this land went under Feni river due<br />
to the incessant rain. I also took a<br />
loan to buy the seeds and fertilisers.<br />
Now, I do not know what to do.”<br />
A local from Dewan Bazar area,<br />
Md Mizan, said: “All my life, I<br />
have noticed India building dams<br />
around the river to protect their<br />
surrounding areas. I have not witnessed<br />
such an effort being made<br />
by Bangladesh and that is way so<br />
much of our land is getting submerged<br />
in the river every year.”<br />
Predicting a severe land mass<br />
crisis, Chairman of Mantiranga<br />
Bornal union, Ali Akbar, suggested<br />
that the government should start<br />
dumping concrete blocks promptly<br />
to protect the areas around the<br />
river from being flooded. He added:<br />
“The union’s Tholapara, Kadamtoli,<br />
Noyapara and Amtoli area<br />
have already lost around 2 hectares<br />
of agricultural land due to the river<br />
erosion. Around three hundred<br />
Bangali settler families have been<br />
also affected in Motumog Karbari<br />
area, Dewanpara and other surrounding<br />
villages.” •<br />
US friendly fire<br />
kills 12 Afghan<br />
policemen<br />
• Tribune Desk<br />
WORLD <br />
An errant US airstrike has killed<br />
12 Afghan National Police officers<br />
who were fighting the Taliban and<br />
wounded two others.<br />
Helmand provincial police chief<br />
Abdul Ghafar Safi said on Saturday<br />
that the death toll in Friday’s airstrike<br />
was determined after a site<br />
inspection of the compound in<br />
Gereshk District.<br />
The Pentagon confirmed the airstrike<br />
on the Security Forces compound<br />
happened during a US-supported<br />
operation against Taliban<br />
insurgents in the area, and offered<br />
its condolences to the families of<br />
the security forces who were killed.<br />
While much of Helmand province<br />
is under the control of Taliban,<br />
Afghan national security forces<br />
have been waging fierce battles to<br />
retake territory.<br />
Nato and US troops are in Helmand<br />
to assist Afghan troops.<br />
Safi told press that the dead<br />
were police officers who were operating<br />
with the army in the area.<br />
The Helmand governor, Hayatullah<br />
Hayat, said it was believed<br />
the police officers were not in uniform,<br />
which may have resulted in<br />
mistakenly identifying them as<br />
Taliban fighters.<br />
A Taliban statement meanwhile<br />
claimed a victory and said 16 Afghan<br />
soldiers were killed.<br />
Iran accuses US<br />
of nuclear deal<br />
sabotage<br />
• AFP, Vienna<br />
WORLD <br />
Iran on Friday vented frustration<br />
over fresh US sanctions which it<br />
says “violate” the terms of a 2015<br />
landmark nuclear deal, raising its<br />
concerns at a meeting with major<br />
world powers in Vienna.<br />
“We talked in detail about the<br />
sanctions and the instances that<br />
the Americans had delayed in fulfilling<br />
their commitments, the instances<br />
where they violated the<br />
deal,” Tehran’s lead nuclear negotiator<br />
Abbas Araqchi told reporters.<br />
“We showed one by one the instances<br />
where the American side<br />
in the last year and a half acted<br />
without good will and even acted<br />
with ill intention. US was “trying to<br />
sabotage the situation, to threaten<br />
or scare off foreign companies to<br />
invest in Iran”, Araqchi said.<br />
The regular quarterly meeting to<br />
review the deal heard, as Washington<br />
already confirmed earlier this<br />
week, that Iran is sticking to its side<br />
of the pact with the US, Russia, China,<br />
Britain, France and Germany. •