Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal has said 14 members of the Myanmar Border Guard Police (BGP) who took refuge in Bangladesh fleeing their country due to heavy gunfights will be sent back.
“We are contacting with Myanmar through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs,” he told reporters at his ministry’s office at Bangladesh Secretariat on Sunday afternoon.
“They are now in the custody of Bangladesh Border Guard (BGB). They submitted their arms and bullets to the BGB. Process is underway to send them back to Myanmar through foreign ministry,” he said.
However, the BGB said on Sunday evening that 46 more BGP personnel entered Bangladesh from Myanmar. With them, a total of 60 Myanmar border guard personnel entered Bangladesh on Sunday.
The home minister said they (Myanmar border police) entered Bangladesh with weapons for self-defence. Recalling the Bangladesh’s Liberation War in 1971, he said thousands of Bangladesh people went to India and took shelter there. So, the border police of Myanmar entered Bangladesh for shelter, not for war.
Earlier, the BGP members took refuge in Bangladesh fleeing from their posts amid reports of heavy gunfights between the government troops and the rebel resistance fighters in the junta-run country.
“The 14 members of the BGP fled their country. They are now in our custody,” an official of the BGB told the reporters on Sunday at the southeastern Cox’s Bazar.
Another official, preferring anonymity, said the 14 BGP personnel crossed the border in pre-dawn hours through the Ghum Dhum border along with their weapons and sought refuge to the BGB in Cox’s Bazar last night.
The minister said, “There is nothing to worry about it. They entered into our country for self-protection. They must be returned. We have detained them, will send them back to Myanmar again.”
Replying to a question about more Rohingyas will be allowed to enter again or not, he said, “Our decision is the same, there is a war going on at the border, none should come here now. If the Rohingya people think that there is a war there, they will go somewhere, we will not allow anyone to enter at this moment.
