NEW DELHI, Aug 19: India and Bangladeshi border police exchanged heavy fire on Friday as Indian Defence Minister Pranab Mukherjee described this week’s bombing spree across Bangladesh as worrisome. Press Trust of India, described the firing between India’s Border Security Forces (BSF) and Bangladesh Rifles (BDR) as the worst confrontation between them in recent months.

It said both exchanged heavy fire thrice in Malda district of West Bengal, triggering tension.

Indian police and BSF officials accused BDR of opening unprovoked fire towards India at Adampur and Muchia outposts early in the morning.

BDR fire was an attempt to prevent embankment work by the Malda district authorities in Mahananda river, about 250 metres away from the International Border, in tune with the border agreement, PTI quoted the officials as saying in Kolkota.

BSF personnel retaliated to the BDR action. Subsequently, the two forces exchanged fire twice till about 11am, they said, adding around 500 rounds were fired in the skirmishes. There was no report of any casualty.

People living in border villages have been evacuated to a safe distance, officials in Malda said.

BSF Deputy Inspector General Ramesh Singh told PTI in New Delhi that although firing had stopped for some time, tension prevailed in the area.

He said senior BSF officials were trying to contact their BDR counterparts to sort out the dispute through talks.

Singh said BDR firing was unprovoked and unwarranted as the embankment work was being undertaken well inside the Indian territory to check large-scale erosion by the Mahananda river which serves as a demarcating line between the two countries.

“Moreover, the work, needed urgently, is a temporary measure to check erosion,” the DIG said, adding the Bangladesh side had no reason to object to it. The work was disrupted due to firing, he said.

Another Indian news report said BDR personnel were carrying out construction work near the border breaking international rules. Border Security Force Deputy Inspector General O.P. Gaur was quoted according to this version as saying that hundreds of construction workers and Bangladeshi soldiers began building a concrete embankment along the Mahananda River that flows into Bangladesh from India.

The BSF had objected to this work before, but Bangladeshi authorities went ahead with the construction, prompting the BSF to open fire first.

Shortly after, Bangladesh Rifles retaliated.

Gaur said the BDR was objecting to a similar project – a fence India had built inside its territory to stop the river from eroding away.

“They don’t allow our legal construction but go ahead with their own illegal activities.”

Tension was palpable along the border post, some 350km north of Kolkata. Defence Minister Pranab Mukherjee on Friday termed the large-scale terrorist violence in Bangladesh as ‘worrisome’.

Our Correspondent from Dhaka adds: Officials at the BDR headquarters in Dhaka said that members of the BSF had opened fire as repairs were being made to the banks of the river that had been eroded by heavy rains.

They said that Bangladeshi workers were at the time laying concrete blocks, sandbags and geo-textile material to protect Mahananda’s bank from erosion.

Gunshots were fired by BDR personnel in response to the BSF firing. The two sides continued to trade fire until Friday evening.

A 35-year-old villager, Bashir Ahmed, was injured in the BSF firing.

“Revetment for the sake of protecting the banks of cross-boundary rivers either from erosion or floods is allowed,” said the BDR director of operations, Hasan Suhrawardi, referring to a convention ratified by the two countries. In such cases, he said, there is no need “to consult one’s counterpart”.

“The Indian side opened fire to halt work on the Bangladeshi side even as they continued to throw spars on the river to protect their side from erosion,” Mr Suhrawardi told reporters.

Following the border clash, workers suspended development work on the river, according to BDR sources. Both the BDR and the BSF amassed additional troops on the frontier and kept their forces on high alert.