Display of India-Bangladesh friendship at Tripura’s Akhaura post

The Agartala-Akhaura border, more accessible to Bangladeshi tourists, offers a cost-effective land route, avoiding expensive airfares. This airport-style crossing involves scanners, paperwork, and formalities. Every weekend, a well-coordinated ceremony, akin to Wagah’s Beating Retreat, unfolds with forces from both sides.

Before the elaborate ceremony begins at the zero line, the area is cleared of visitors. An emcee ensures silence among the seated crowd before the performance starts, celebrating both peaceful moments and friendly rivalry.

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Akhaura played a pivotal role in the 1971 Liberation War, where Indian soldiers secured a bridge near the Akhaura-Chittagong railway line, thwarting East Pakistani forces. This historical significance adds depth to the region’s narrative. Immaculately dressed in Indian khaki, the Border Security Force soldiers march with a fast-paced gait, maintaining a perfectly erect posture, marking the beginning of the joint retreat ceremony across the zero line.

A show of power and prowess unfolds as soldiers on both sides – the Indian Border Security Force in khaki and the Bangladesh Border Security Guard in dark pinkish-brown with pale yellow stripes – chant cadences to boost morale and maintain rhythm. The strategic position, combined with the ceremonial border display, makes Akhaura not just a transit point but a place intertwined with historical and contemporary cross-border interactions.

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A well-choreographed march on both sides ensues  with soldiers from each side going through a series of poses. As the ceremony continues, soldiers from each side start hoisting their flags in unison before proceeding to lower them as part of the joint retreat ceremony. Chants, marches, and the ceremony near the end with the daily ritual of lowering the flags on either side.

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Soldiers on each side carry their flags back after the flag-lowering ceremony. Snippets show soldiers from each side saluting during the march. The 45-minute frenzy of activity concludes with guards popping and locking their arms, saluting on the march before returning to their respective bases. 

As the border ceremony concludes, visitors from each side immediately rush to the barricaded zero line to meet neighbours who have come from afar to witness the joint retreat ceremony. Indian visitors express sincere wishes for peace and strong friendship on the occasion of Victory Day. In the picture, a bespectacled man on the Indian side asks, in an unusually loud voice, a man on the other side of the border, “How far is Dhaka from here?”

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