Bangladeshis killed in BSF firing at the border were mostly criminals, says Indian Border Security Force Director General Pankaj Kumar Singh.
He made the remarks while responding to media queries after the BGB-BSF director general (DG) level 52nd Border Conference at Pilkhana on Thursday
The BSF chief said that only those involved in various crimes including smugglers, drug dealers and traffickers were killed in the border firings.
Responding to queries on how the BSF labels someone as a criminal, he said that they verified the identity of those killed at the borders with DMP, Kolkata Police and border intelligence agencies and found that they were all criminals.
Dismissing queries about whether those are targeted killings, Pankaj Kumar said that they do not just label people as criminals.
According to him, only those involved in trafficking try to illegally cross the borders.
He said that BSF is working with BGB to bring border killings down to zero and that so 89 BSF personnel have been severely injured while preventing border infiltration and smuggling.
He added that India has already started using non-lethal weapons to bring down border killings to zero and that BSF is in constant discussion with various border issues.
