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R C Silkoti, Commandant of the BSF headquarters in Shillong, said there was no report of any exchange of fire between the BSF and BDR at Pyrdiwah in Meghalaya and Mankachar area in Assam with both sides agreeing to maintain status quo.
He said, "Everything is peaceful there" and Bangladesh would on Friday return the bodies of the BSF jawans killed by BDR at Boraibari. Altogether, 16 jawans were killed in the firing.
He said BSF Director General Gurbachan Jagat would visit the border areas on Friday on a fact-finding mission.
However, villagers of Pyrdiwah, who were chased out by the BDR, have not yet returned to their homes though normalcy had returned after BSF took possession of their observatory post in the village, official sources said in Shillong.
Official sources at Tura said people from Mankachar in Assam were still fleeing the place and taking shelter in West Garo Hills district.
The district administration has set up three camps at Sulguri, Jholgaon and Monabari and provided relief to the inmates.
Chief Minister E K Mawlong said he would send a report to the Centre on the status of the affected villagers.
A report from Guwahati quoting the Deputy Commissioner Gayatri Baruah on Friday said the guns had fallen silent across the border since late Thursday night.
However, the BSF and BDR were engaged in sporadic exchange of fire along the border in Mankachar area in Dhubri district even after Thursday's flag meeting at Dawki, Baruah said.
"Low scale exchange of fire was continuing between the BSF and BDR personnel till Thursday but after midnight there was no further report of firing," she said.
A civilian was injured by a mortar shell fired by the Bangladesh Rifle on Thursday night taking the injured toll to 21, Baruah said.
The worst-hit villages of the district are Shahapara, Thakurianbari, Boroibari and Karipara while altogether 30 villages have been affected, she said.
Baruah said the villagers were terrified of returning to their homes and were flocking in large numbers to the nearby towns in both Assam and Meghalaya.
Mankachar MLA and Minister of State for Forest Aminul Islam said that the state government was aware of the prevailing situation and claimed that some land at Boraibari village has been the bone of contention between the two countries since the inception of Bangladesh in 1971.
PTI
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