Nayek Razzak returns home

Myanmar authorities on Thursday released Border Guard Bangladesh soldier Nayek Abdur Razzak following a flag meeting in Maungdaw in Myanmar after nine days of his abduction by Myanmar border guards. ‘He was handed over to our delegation at about 5:30pm along with his firearms, 22 bullets and other belongings,’ the Border Guard Bangladesh director general, Major General Aziz Ahmed, told reporters at border guards headquarters in the capital. The six-member border guard delegation team led by its 42 battalion director Lieutenant Colonel Mohammad Abu Zar Al Jahid along with a physician returned Tekhnaf with Razzak at about 6:15pm. The border guard chief said that Razzak was in good health but he had bled profusely as a Myanmar Border Guard Police member bite his nose during scuffle on June 17. About the firing incident in which Razzak was abducted, Aziz said that it was not a ‘misunderstanding’ rather an ‘intentional firing’ on Bangladeshi border guards. He said that about 14 Myanmar border guards in plain clothes on two boats opened ‘intentional fire’ on Bangladesh patrol boats led by Nayek Abdur Razzak on the Naff river on June 17 when Bangladesh border guards were retuning their border out post after an overnight anti-smuggling drive. He hinted that drive against Yaba caused anger among Myanmar border force. ‘Two boats of BGP team approached one of the two BGB patrol boats inside Bangladesh territory…They were looking for Habildar Lutfor whom I awarded for Yaba recovery,’ the border guards chief said, adding, ‘They did not find Lutfor but took away Razzak.’ He said that border guards had seized over 12 lakh pieces of Yaba, pills containing a mixture of methamphetamine and caffeine, from the Jadimura canal, where the two border forces traded bullets, in the past one year. The attack left Sepoy Biplob Sarkar injured, Aziz said, adding that Bangladesh border guards also opened fire that left one of the Myanmar border guards injured. Aziz alleged that the Myanmar border force violated all the norms both forces practiced along the border and said circulating photographs of a member of a discipline force on the social media was a violation of human rights and international practices. ‘But,’ he said, ‘Bangladesh wanted to handle the issue in a peaceful way.’ He said that at the flag meeting, Myanmar border guards tried to claim that Bangladesh border guards in the patrol team were in plain clothes and violated the border line. ‘But, we dismissed their claims,’ he said. The border guard chief said that the flag meeting came to a conclusion that henceforth both forces would share real-time intelligence and would inform each other in the case of ‘cross-boundary drive.’ ‘Both forces will respect the land boundary agreement signed in 1980,’ he said. Aziz said that they would investigate what extend of operational fault border guard team had on the day and action would be taken duly. ‘According to standard operational practice, the distance between two boats should to be 100 to 150 yards but it was over 400 yards,’ he added. About a dozen bullets were exchanged and the guards scuffled near small island village Laldwip inside Myanmar at about 5:30am on June 17, while both forces were on duty, officials said. The state minister for home, Asaduzzaman Khan, however, termed the exchange of gunfire between the two border guards as a result of ‘misunderstanding’. The foreign ministry on June 18 summoned the Myanmar ambassador in Dhaka, U Myo Myint Than, and lodged a strong protest and asked for immediate release of Razzak. Instead of his release, photographs showing the Razzak in handcuffs began circulating in the social media. In May 2014, border guard Nayek Mizanur Rahman died in Naikhyanchari border in Bandarban during another incident between the two border forces. News Courtesy: www.newagebd.net