Tension at India-Bangladesh border as BSF jawan abducted by 'miscreants'; EAM holds meets with counterpart

The trooper was kidnapped by a group of 15-20 'illegal Bangladeshi miscreants' while he was undertaking a routine patrol near the Biral border in the Dinajpur area of West Bengal.

New Delhi: Even as New Delhi had its first high-level engagement with the new interim government in Dhaka on Tuesday, tension escalated along the border between the two nations at Dinajpur in West Bengal after a jawan of India’s Border Security Force was kidnapped by miscreants and placed into the custody of Border Guards Bangladesh.

The BSF lodged a strong protest with the BGB, which later returned the jawan.

External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar had a meeting with Touhid Hosain, his counterpart in the interim government led by Muhammad Yunus in Dhaka. The bilateral meeting took place on the sideline of the United Nations General Assembly in New York.

“Had a meeting with Foreign Affairs Adviser Md. Touhid Hossain of Bangladesh in New York this evening. The conversation focussed on our bilateral ties,” Jaishankar posted on X.

“All aspects of bilateral relations were discussed,” Hossain told journalists after meeting Jaishankar. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Government of Bangladesh posted on X that they discussed “issues of mutual interest”.

This was the first high-level engagement between the two nations after the government led by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in Dhaka collapsed in the wake of mass protests against the police crackdown on students demanding the end of reservation in government jobs.

Hasina flew from Dhaka to New Delhi just hours before her official residence was stormed by the protesters.

The BSF on Tuesday said that it had lodged a "strong protest" with its Bangladeshi counterpart BGB after its jawan was "abducted" by "miscreants" from the neighbouring country while patrolling the India-Bangladesh border in West Bengal.

The BSG alleged that the soldier was kidnapped by a group of 15-20 miscreants, who crossed over from Bangladesh and entered into the territory of India.