Kolkata : Bangladesh Minister for Land Shamsur Rahman Sherif met West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Monday and said the border enclave issue would soon be resolved.
“On border enclaves, she said there will not be any problems. We will solve the border enclave issue,” Sherif said after meeting Banerjee at the state secretariat “Nabanna” in neighbouring Howrah district.
He said there was no specific discussion on how it would be done and “today’s meeting was a courtesy call”.
Recently a group of Bangladeshi and Indian enclave dwellers have written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi for expediting the passage of the constitution’s 119th amendment ratifying the Land Boundary Agreement (LBA).
The enclaves is significant as the Narendra Modi government in India is eager to ratify the LBA with Bangladesh which entails swapping of adversely occupied border enclaves.
First signed in 1974, to find a solution to the complex nature of border demarcation, the LBA once passed will see India exchanging 111 enclaves measuring 17,160 acres to Bangladesh and receiving 51 enclaves covering 7,110 acres. More than 51,000 people reside in these enclaves.
Rajnath Singh, who became the first union home minister to visit an enclave last month, has batted for the LBA ratification on humanitarian grounds.
Sherif iterated the Bangladesh government’s commitment to fight terrorism.
“The Bangladesh government is against terrorism and we have taken necessary steps. The result of this is that the terrorists are under complete control and they have no importance,” he said.
Besides, the minister said those responsible for the brutal murder of Bangladeshi-American blog writer Avijit Roy in Dhaka in February and another blogger subsequently “will be caught and punished”.