India and Bangladesh were locked in a fresh war of words on Sunday over illegal migration on their troubled border, ahead of the arrival of Bangladesh's foreign minister's for talks to improve ties. New Delhi says illegal migrants, smugglers and anti-India insurgents are flooding across the 4,000 km (2,500 miles) border with Bangladesh because of poor border controls. Bangladesh denies the accusation.
In turn, officials from the Bangladesh Rifles border guards said Indian border guards had tried to push a group of 500 Bangla-speaking people into Bangladesh over the past two weeks.
Indian says they are Bangladeshi people who slipped across the border and so must be pushed back. However, Dhaka says they are Indians who are being thrown out of the country.
India rejected the allegation it was trying to deport any of its nationals. "The question of forcing Indian citizen into the territory of any other nation by any Indian authority does not arise," a statement by the Indian embassy in Dhaka said.
Both sides said the issue of illegal migration would be taken up during Bangladesh Foreign Minister Morshed Khan's talks with his Indian counterpart Natwar Singh on Monday.
Khan is also scheduled to meet Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to formally invite him to next year's summit of the South Asian Association for Regional Conference in Dhaka.
Analysts said New Delhi was also likely to raise the issue of camps of anti-Indian guerrillas which it says exist in Bangladesh.
Earlier this month, it asked Dhaka to hand over 126 guerrillas, most of them belonging to groups blamed for a sudden upsurge in separatist violence across the turbulent north-east near the border in which more than 79 people have died.
"The top priority for India is the terrorist camps and the security situation," said S.D. Muni, a South Asia expert at New Delhi's Jawaharlal Nehru University.
Bangladesh has consistently rejected charges that it hosted anti-India guerrilla camps. Last month Khan said there was not a single camp of anti-India insurgents in Bangladesh and instead said there were Bangladeshi criminals hiding in India.
But Muni said Dhaka would have to act sooner or later against militants operating from its soil. "There is tremendous international pressure on Bangladesh and they have got to do something about it."
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