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Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB) has been given high-speed vessels to help it strengthen patrolling of maritime and riverine areas as well as to stop drug smuggling, human trafficking and transnational crimes.
“Four state-of-the-art high speed interceptor vessels have been added to the BGB arsenal recently under the direct guidance of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina,” said BGB Public Relations Officer (PRO) Md Shariful Islam.
It will help the border guards check transnational crimes, illegal infiltration, smuggling of drugs, human trafficking and smuggling.
The 40-foot, 750-horsepower, three-engine intercepted vessel made of Silvercraft 40 model reinforced polymer is capable of carrying 33 soldiers and has a speed of 55 nautical miles per hour or 101kph.
These vessels are capable of navigating in inclement weather and are equipped with state-of-the-art satellite navigation system (RADAR), fourth generation GPS, modern sonar system (SONAR) and many more sophisticated equipment with automatic machine gun attachment facilities.
They can confirm the position of enemy ships at a distance of 50km from their own position. These vessels also have the capacity to transport two critical patients.
In addition to Bangladesh's 4,164km land border, the BGB directly controls and patrols the 180km naval border with India and 63km naval border with Myanmar. In addition, since 2019, under the direction of the Prime Minister, the BGB has been engaged in the overall security of the land area of St Martin's Island.
The border of Naf River is used as one of the routes for smuggling yaba on the Bangladesh-Myanmar border. The constant adoption of new tactics by transnational criminals, human trafficking, smuggling, increasing drug trafficking, and the ongoing Rohingya situation are major challenges to effectively control the border along the Naf River.
Similar challenges exist on Bangladesh-India border in the Sundarbans, southwestern Bangladesh.
These high-speed vessels are capable of carrying more troops will greatly increase the capacity of the BGB to prevent trans-border crimes on Bangladesh's maritime and riverine border areas, reports UNB.