The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) on August 24 issued yet another appeal about further threats and violations of fundamental rights by the Border Security Force (BSF) stationed along India’s border with Bangladesh. In the latest incident this August 18 the family of a torture victim was allegedly threatened by a BSF intelligence officer over its complaint to the police. The family is now living in grave fear of being killed or having falsified charges laid against them by the BSF battalion in the area.
In theory, the BSF is called upon to safeguard the national boundary, protect citizens and assist the local police whenever required. In practice, its personnel are involved in smuggling, threatening of citizens and obstruction of effective policing.
In the last year alone the AHRC has documented the killing of some 14 persons by BSF personnel stationed along that section of border. One was a 14-year-old boy, shot dead on June 8. Torture and other abuses by the BSF are also widely reported. The persistence of these allegations makes them difficult to ignore. However, to our knowledge none of these cases has been acted upon by the head of the BSF or other concerned persons.
The BSF Director General Asish Kumar Mitra has posted a message on the agency’s website which declares his concern for the families and people that the BSF is supposed to protect. He has also called upon his field commanders to provide direction and leadership to their subordinate officers so that the quality of their service and discipline is not compromised at any cost (see http://bsf.nic.in/message.htm). Unfortunately, this message consists of nothing other than empty rhetoric for so long as his officers in the field are left to torture and murder innocent civilians with the assurance of impunity for their acts.
It is an established principle that in any case of an atrocity committed by a subordinate officer, his commanding officer cannot escape liability and questioning. This is the obligation placed upon the superior by virtue of the chain of command. The director general of the BSF likewise cannot avoid responsibility for the acts being committed by his subordinates. Certainly he is unable to plead ignorance, as all of the cases known to the AHRC have been referred to his office.
So the question must be asked, if the law provides for court martial where a member of the armed forces commits murder and other violent crimes, is the BSF director general immune from it?
