A lawmaker from India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has sparked intense outrage after threatening that Bangladeshis crossing into Indian territory will be shot on sight, escalating delicate cross-border tensions in West Bengal.
Dadhiram Roy, the BJP legislator representing Mekhliganj in Cooch Behar district, issued the chilling warning on Sunday following a tense standoff between local villagers and India’s Border Security Force (BSF) over sand and stone extraction along the frontier.
ladeshis will be shot as soon as they set foot on Indian soil,” Roy declared flatly, addressing the border clash.
The confrontation flared up on Saturday in the Saniyajan River region of Mekhliganj, where local residents and BSF troops clashed over resource extraction near the international boundary. BSF personnel deployed sound grenades to disperse the crowd and regain control of the area.
Defending the border force’s aggressive stance, Roy insisted that BSF troops remained on high alert and warned that future incidents would be met with an iron fist.
His inflammatory remarks come at a deeply sensitive time for Bangladesh, where civilian deaths and alleged abuses by the BSF along the shared 4,000-kilometre border remain a flashpoint. Dhaka has repeatedly raised the issue in bilateral summits, securing past pledges from New Delhi to reduce border fatalities to zero.
International relations analysts warned that such incendiary rhetoric from elected officials risks inflaming an already fragile border climate.
Roy’s outburst has also drawn fierce backlash within India. Human rights activist Choton Das slammed the threat, calling it completely unbecoming of a lawmaker. “Such an insensitive statement is utterly unacceptable from an elected representative,” Das said. “Isolated incidents may occur along a vast border, but threatening to open fire on citizens of a neighbouring country is deeply deplorable.”
Echoing the condemnation, Md Kamruzzaman, general secretary of the All Bengal Minority Youth Federation, voiced grave concern over the remarks and demanded that Roy issue an immediate, unconditional apology.
