'Dhaka won't allow anti-India activities from its territory'

New Delhi: Close on the heels of the decision to relaunch Maitree Express, which will run between Kolkata and Dhaka from April 14, 2008, Dhaka today assured that the Bangladesh's territory would not be allowed to be used by any group or individual for hostile activities against India or any other country.

The Director General, Bangladesh Rifle (BDR), Major General Shakil Ahmed said this while speaking to media-persons on the inaugural day of the five-day Dhaka-Delhi conference on Indo-Bangla border at Border Security Force (BSF) Headquarters in New Delhi today.

Admitting the fact that some terrorist groups have harboured inside Bangladesh to carry out their activities, Major General Shakil Ahmed said, "Yes, these accusations are made and I hope they are not made lightly. Any territory can be used by criminals for criminal activity. All that I wish to state here emphatically is that we will not allow Bangladeshi territory to be used for groups and any individual keeping animosity towards India or any other country. We stand ready to cooperate on these issue on all time."

However, Ahmed strongly refuted the allegation made against Bangladesh that it is a hub of terrorists saying that every country finds out information from various sources regarding the activity of terrorist and criminal.

"The information what I have today might not remain valid six months later. It is because the criminals and terrorists do not stay longer at the same place. It is an attempt of trying to remain a step ahead of the criminal. We are trying to evolve a strategy and a system from where we can deal with them as quickly as they perpetuate crimes," defended Ahmed.

Underlining the importance of timely exchange of information of criminal activities, he said, "If we cooperate on information sharing, exchange the list of the information of the terrorist and criminal and try to verify these on the ground, we can achieve much more and much better border management. Besides this, we can establish the peaceful border between the two countries as well."

Meanwhile, the Director General of Border Security Force (BSF) A K Mitra avoided answering on key issues to be discussed in the five-day meeting. "We have just started, so nothing to talk about it now," said Mitra.