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Bangladeshi soldier held captive by Myanmar border force freed

Xinhua, June 25, 2015 Adjust font size:

A Bangladeshi paramilitary soldier held captive since June 17 by Myanmar border force were handed over to Bangladesh authorities on Thursday evening, an official said here.

The official of Bangladesh's Ministry Affairs said the soldier, Abdur Razzak, was released following a flag meeting between Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB) and Myanmar's Border Guard Police (BGP) on Thursday.

The meeting was held in Myanmar's Maungdaw where Razzak was handed over to a BGB team with his licensed arms and ammunition, said the official who preferred to be unnamed.

It has been over a week that Myanmar was stalling this flag meeting to return the Bangladeshi border trooper after their BGP took him captive on June 17.

A six-member BGB team, led by commanding officer of the 42nd battalion Lieutenant Colonel Abu Jar al Zahid, left Teknaf for Maungdaw on a trawler at around 10:00 a.m. local time Thursday to hold the flat meeting.

The meeting was held a day after Bangladeshi State Minister for Home Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal rejected the condition reportedly set out by Myanmar for the release of the BGB soldier.

BGP reportedly opened fire at a patrol trawler of BGB on the Naf River along the border in Bangladesh's Cox's Bazar, some 391 km southeast of capital Dhaka, June 17.

After the shootout in the Naf River along the border, BGP personnel took BGB trooper Razzak away. The incident left BGB soldier injured.

The incident sparked widespread flak in social media in Bangladesh after a picture of Razzak with blood dropping from his nose in handcuffs has been posted on the BGP Facebook page.

This is the second such incident since the Myanmar authorities abolished its Nasaka force in July 2013 and deployed the BGP.

Another Naik Mizanur Rahman was reportedly abducted and killed by the BGP On May 28 last year.

Two days later, the BGP was supposed to return Mizanur's body to the BGB. But, when the Bangladeshi border guards went to receive the body, the BGP men opened fire on them instead of handing the body over to them.

According to the BGB, Mizanur was patrolling the border to check Rohingya infiltration.

Bangladesh-Myanmar shares a common border of 271 kilometers which is divided into two parts 64km zero-line boundary on the Naf River and a 208km land boundary. Endi