DHAKA, May 2: Bangladesh and India should hold talks at the highest level to resolve the border crisis and improve the overall bilateral relations, argued a group of civil society leaders on Monday. They also argued that the civil society members should take independent initiatives to improve relations.

The civil society leaders made the observations at a seminar while briefing about its recent visit to Akhaura, where a clash between Bangladeshi and Indian troops on April 16 left an Indian border guard and a Bangladeshi girl killed. The Council for National Agenda organized the seminar, after a group of academics, defence experts and journalists visited the Akhaura frontier.

“Skirmish and tension centring erection of fences along the border by BSF will not be stopped unless and until the governments of the two countries sit for discussion at the highest level,” defence expert Shakhawat Hossain said.

Apart from the top-level dialogue, he suggested reinforcement of border guards along the frontier areas. Emphasizing personalized dialogue, Justice Abdur Rauf, the council chairman, said jingoistic attitude is good neither for Bangladesh nor for India.

“From now on, we will not allow the Indian delegates to stay at hotels and we (Bangladeshi delegates) will not stay at hotels in India during our visits there. We will ask them to say at our residences and reciprocally we will stay at their residences during our visits there,” he said.