Author: Anand Soondas
Publication: The Times of India
Date: April 28, 2005
URL: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/1091060.cms
The sun goes down early in Agartala.
By about 5 pm, the trees begin to sway in the light breeze. Jeevan Kumar
would wait for this time everyday to get into his sports gear and play
volleyball with the jawans.
On April 16, the 32-year-old BSF
assistant commandant had just won a point in the game when he heard that
an Indian in the border village of Lankamura, Ramdhan Pal, had been abducted
by Bangladesh Rifles (BDR) personnel. It would be Kumar's last game. Moments
after he went into the Bangladeshi side to protest the "abduction", he
was dragged in by BDR men, tortured and then shot to death. Pal later told
the police he was beaten by the BDR and that he was in detention for two
days.
Investigations by TOI, however,
point to a larger conspiracy - of Indian villagers snaring their own officers
into the BDR's den.
The story may not be as simple as
what Pal made it out to be. He, for instance, did not reveal that he used
to be a smuggler dealing in phencidyl, a codine phosphate-laced cough syrup
that is banned in many places.
Therefore, he was among those affected
by Kumar's drive against... ...smuggling activities across the border.
Also, Pal had no injury marks on his body when the BDR released him from
their "custody".
"It's a farce, this Pal story,"
said a BSF officer at the Akhaura border, a stone's throw from Bangladesh.
"He is being interrogated by intelligence
officers. He set Kumar up. The BDR did not lay a finger on him. Villagers
around here, both in Bangladesh and India, depend to a large extent on
smuggling. The BDR earns money from them. Kumar was an irritant to both."
There is another angle. It was Pal's
son, Sanjit, who ran to Kumar, alerting him about his father's "abduction".
Then, the BSF officer's body was
found in a ditch on the Bangladeshi side after he was tortured near the
house of Abbas Mia, a known criminal of Bangladesh.
The fence that is coming up here
is an added nuisance to smugglers and the BDR though it has helped men
like Kumar in their mission.
