Bangladesh skeptical of Indian request for land

DHAKA, Bangladesh

Bangladesh's home minister on Friday expressed his dismay at a report that India had requested Dhaka for a piece of land to expand an airport near its eastern border.

“There is no question of giving them our territory,” Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal told Anadolu Agency over phone.

Kamal was responding to a question about a local media report that New Delhi "has proposed to expand its Agartala Airport into the Bangladesh territory in Brahmanbaria for an upgrade".

The location of the airport is only 100 kilometers (62 miles) east of Bangladeshi capital Dhaka and located less than a kilometer off the border line.

Local daily New Age reported on Thursday that India has made the proposal "at several meetings in the past one year". Bangladesh's foreign secretary also confirmed the discussion indicating that officials in the meeting were tilted in favor of India, the daily reported.

Kamal, however, said they have not received any written proposal from India yet.

“But why do they use our land? They can use their own land for this expansion,” he said, pointing out that India has enough land in its own territory around the airport to expand it.

The report further added that Foreign Ministry officials of Bangladesh held a meeting in October last year "with other relevant ministries and intelligence agencies to examine whether or how Dhaka could share its land with India" for the expansion of Maharaja Bir Bikram Airport [previously known as Agartala Airport] in northeastern Tripura state.

- National security concern

Questions have been raised on whether this expansion, if allowed, will pose a threat to Bangladeshi sovereignty.

“If there is open-space boundary between Bangladesh and India like in European Union, or peaceful boundary as like between the U.S. and Canada, such a proposal can be rational,” Shahiduzzaman, a professor of International Relations at Dhaka University, told Anadolu Agency.

But India has erected two to three layers of barbed wire fences at the border and frequent incidents of killing are being reported, he went on to say.

“They [India] can expand the airport in their territory, why [do] they want to use Bangladeshi land,” he said, adding that their main target is to intrude into Bangladesh anyway.

He added: “India's such expansion means that they will impose their own security system here that will be a permanent settlement later.”

Abu Ahmed, an Economics professor at Dhaka University, said Bangladesh must do a cost-benefit analysis before making any decision.

"We should remember that we have very limited land while India has huge land and so why they want land from us.

“The issue should be publicly debated. It is not a mere matter of good political connectivity between two governments. It is a matter of interest of the whole country," Ahmed concluded.