NEW DELHI -- India helped liberate Bangladesh from the tyrannical rule of Pakistan some three decades ago, but ties between the two neighbors have often been marked by suspicion, even hostility. This animosity have its roots in a boundary dispute and a smuggling issue, as well as illegal migration by desperately poor Bangladeshis into the Indian border states of Assam and Meghalaya.
The situation is complicated further by the shifting boundaries, thanks to the numerous rivers there that change their course ever so often. There are over 110 Indian enclaves in Bangladesh, and 50 Bangladeshi enclaves in India along a no man's land that stretches to an uncomfortably long 4,000 km.
Last week, a Bangladesh Rifles battalion marched into Meghalaya and tried to capture an Indian Border Security Force post. A day later, a border Security Force patrol of 16 men in Assam was dragged into Bangladesh by its Rifles soldiers, dressed as civilians, and killed in cold blood.