5,000 flee homes as BDR, BSF trade fire on Zakiganj borders
Staff Correspondent, Sylhet
About 5,000 panicked inhabitants of at least five villages left their homesteads as gunfight erupted between the Indian Border Security Force (BSF) and Bangladesh Rifles (BDR) on Zakiganj borders on Thursday night.The exchange of several hundred gunshots continued until 10:20pm after the BSF started firing at the Uttarkul BDR outpost, sources said. Panic-stricken villagers of Uttarkul, Kazipara, Dighali, Salehpur and Binnapara left their village homes within an hour following the gunfight. Hundreds of people were seen on the Sylhet-Zakiganj road at 11:00pm on Thursday night waiting for bus and other vehicles to move to safer places, he said. Second-in-command of Sylhet BDR Major Sirajul Haque said the Indian border guards started firing at the BDR outpost on the Uttarkul borders at about 8:55pm on Thursday. The BDR replied the shots, he said, adding that around 600-700 gunshots were traded until 10:20pm. A tense situation had been prevailing along the Zakiganj borders for the last three months after the BSF tried to prevent some Bangladeshi farmers from cultivating farmlands attached to the BDR outposts on Uttarkul and Amolshid borders. Both the border guards traded about 2000 gunshots on July 26 and 27. The BDR was also able to prevent the BSF men from erecting barbed-wire fences within 150 yards from the border at Jahajghat point.
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