India-Bangladesh train to resume in April
BANGLADESH - Passenger trains are expected to start rolling again
between Bangladesh and India around the end of April, resuming a
passengers service suspended four decades ago, a senior communication
ministry official said on Monday.
"The last hurdle to reopening the passenger service between Dhaka and
Kolkata has been removed," said Mahbubur Rahman, secretary of the
ministry.
He said Dhaka had now accepted an Indian demand that a "box-type"
fence would be constructed along the railway's passage through the
no-man's land between Bangladesh and India to ensure security and stop
smuggling or illegal migration.
"Services now look set to resume around the end of April," he told
Reuters. Thousands of people on both sides of the India-Bangladesh
border have relatives on the other side, and many Bangladeshis also
travel to Kolkata, capital of India's West Bengal state, and other
Indian cities to seek medical treatment, officials said.
Passenger train services between the two countries were suspended
after a war between India and Pakistan in 1965, when Bangladesh was the
eastern province of Pakistan. Bangladesh became an independent country
in 1971.
Dhaka, Monday, Reuters
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