NEW DELHI - A passenger train service between India and Bangladesh, suspended more than four decades ago, will resume next week, the Indian government said in a statement said on Friday. The new train service will start on April 14. “The agreement will strengthen bilateral relations and provide an alternative mode of passenger transport,” the statement said.Passenger train services between the two countries were suspended after a war between India and Pakistan in 1965, when Bangladesh was the eastern province of Pakistan. Bangladesh became an independent country in 1971. Thousands of people on both sides of the India-Bangladesh border have relatives on the other side, and many Bangladeshis also travel to Kolkata, capital of India’s West Bengal state, and other Indian cities to seek medical treatment.
Bangladesh and India signed a deal on July 12, 2001 to resume a direct train service between Dhaka and Kolkata, but it was delayed because the two sides were wrangling over security arrangements. Dhaka had now accepted an Indian demand that a “box-type” fence would be constructed along the railway’s passage through the no-man’s land between Bangladesh and India to ensure security and stop smuggling or illegal migration.