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| Sunday, 26 January 2003 |
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Indian truckers' strike paralyses traffic at Bangladesh border CALCUTTA, India, Jan 25 (AFP) - Traffic between India and Bangladesh has come to a standstill after striking Indian truckers blocked roads to protest the killing of a colleague, allegedly by Indian troops, police said Saturday. Truck drivers and clearing agents have mounted a blockade since Thursday at the Petrapole border post, about 80 kilometres (50 miles) northeast of Calcutta, the capital of the eastern Indian state of West Bengal, police said. "They have blocked the road since Thursday morning with bamboo sticks and wooden logs, preventing movement of traffic," police sub-divisional officer Biswarup Ghosh said. "Trucks from Bangladesh are not being allowed into India either." Ghosh said thousands of loaded trucks were stranded on both sides of the border. He said two truck drivers and a clearing agent were reportedly beaten up, one of them fatally, by Indian border guards after their trucks reached the Petrapole checkpoint on Wednesday night. A commandant of the Indian Border Force, Joyanta Prasad, denied the allegation. "Indian border guards were not involved in the incident. The allegation is false. Some people are trying to defame the Indian border guards after a stepped-up drive against cross-border smuggling," he said. The blockade has also affected bus services between Calcutta and Bangladesh's capital, Dhaka. "Hundreds of Bangladeshis, who visit Calcutta and its outskirts daily for medical treatment, are forced to walk at least 10 kilometers (six miles) on either side of the border to find transport," Ghosh said. Spokesman for the transport workers' union, Sahidul Gaji, said the truckers would not allow traffic to flow until the accused were punished. Thousands of trucks carry food grains and other essential commodities from India to Bangladesh through the Petrapole checkpoint daily. Earlier this month, India launched a crackdown on illegal immigrants from Bangladeh and began constructing a barbed wire fence along its porous border to stop smuggling and infiltration. |
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