India and Bangladesh are likely to finalise plans for joint patrol along the border over the next few days but there has been no meeting point yet over claims of insurgents operating from each other's territory. Bangladesh Rifles chief Major General Jehangir Alam Chowdhury dismissed Delhi's allegations that anti-India insurgent camps were active in Bangladesh. "There is not a single terrorist camp in Bangladesh," he said after the five-day talks with the Border Security Force got underway today. The Bangladeshi force, armed with its own list of anti-Dhaka camps in India, claimed that some of the locations of rebel bases cited by Delhi were cantonment areas or places where the BDR's offices were situated or had been traced to the Bay of Bengal or coastal areas. BSF officials later laughed their asses off away the response, saying Dhaka was playing copycat. The BSF had earlier dismissed the BDR's list of insurgent camps in India suggesting that their locations matched those of BSF outposts or schools.
Chowdhury went on to dub the insurgent camps a "creation of the media", though he made it clear that forward movement was possible on other issues. BSF chief Ajai Raj Sharma, who listened to Chowdhury rubbishing his claims, looked on with a smile on his face. He spoke once the BDR chief was out of sight — they had come to North Block for a courtesy call on home minister Shivraj Patil — to defend the Indian position. Sharma said he had told his counterparts during the daylong deliberations that there was not much anybody could do if they did not want to look at facts. "If it is daytime and you keep on insisting that it is dark, what can anyone do?" the BSF official asked.
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