8 BSF men sent to jail for torturing a Bangladeshi

Eight Indian Border Security Force (BSF) personnel, guilty of torturing a young Bangladeshi man in West Bengal's Murshidabad district, were given an 89-day jail term last night, BSF officials said.
After serving time in BSF's "quarter guard" (equivalent of police jail) they will resume duty.



The punishment came after the Indian border guard force ordered their court martial for stripping, kicking and beating a Bangladeshi national along the Indo-Bangladesh border at Charmurasi boundary outpost of Murshidabad in early February.

Besides, one of them was demoted from the post of head constable to constable in order to implement his sentence, as a head constable cannot be sent to jail under the BSF rules.

The convicts, according to BSF chief U K Bansal, were found prima facie guilty after an inquiry into the incident.

The torture of the 32-year-old Bangladeshi, identified as Abdul Sheikh, a resident of Abasia in Chapainawabganj, had been captured on a mobile phone. He had been allegedly smuggling cattle across the border when BSF troops intercepted him.

As several Indian TV channels broadcast the footage, the force suspended its eight members involved. They are constables Virender Tiwari, V S Victor, Dhananjay Kumar, Anand Singh, Amar Jyoti, Sanjeev Kumar, Suresh Chand and Sunil Kumar, of 105 battalion of BSF.