Dhaka: India and Bangladesh on April 28 expressed their firm commitment to maintain tranquillity on the borders and resolve all outstanding issues pertaining to the vexed issue between them.

Leading a 16-member delegation of the Border Security Force (BSF) for talks with Bangladesh Rifles (BDR), BSF director general Ajai Raj Sharma stressed the need to maintain peace and expressed satisfaction after the first day of parleys.

Echoing similar sentiment, BDR chief major general Mohammed Jehangir Alam Chowdhury described the talks as "fruitful".

The visiting 16-member Indian delegation includes representatives from the Ministries of Home and External Affairs.

The top-level three-day talks come after the issue of illegal immigrants threatened to snowball into a major standoff between the two countries in February.

Sharma later told reporters that killings were mainly aimed against smugglers and not against common people on either side of the divide.

Of the 27 people killed in recent times, he said, 15 were Bangladeshi nationals and 12 were Indian.

Over the next two days, the Indians are likely to raise the issue of large-scale infiltration of Bangladeshis into India and operation of insurgent camps in the Bangladeshi territory. New Delhi last year handed over to Dhaka a list of 99 insurgency camps operating from Bangladesh.

The two sides are also likely to discuss measures to check smuggling of arms, ammunition and drugs along the border and the demarcation of 6.5-km-long unmarked border.

PTI