The BSF had sealed the border to prevent movement of fugitives among the BDR personnel to facilitate the process of bringing the guilty to book.

The conference also takes place in the backdrop of the killing of three Bangladeshi cattle traders at Benapole border Saturday. The BSF gunned down the traders while they were returning home from India in the morning. The incident triggered tension along the border.

The two neighbours share a difficult, even unnatural 4,300-km border that criss-crosses rivers, villages and even cuts across individual homes.

Indian attempts at erecting a barbed wire border fence to prevent infiltration is a bone of contention between the neighbours. Dhaka treats it as a defence installation, while Delhi says it is meant to prevent infiltration and ease frequent border tensions.

'Defence strategy in the name of erecting fences along the border, road construction and excavation within 150 yards of the border line will come as agenda at the conference,' read the list of the BDR agenda, adding that Dhaka would also ask Delhi for repatriation of the nationals of the two countries who have completed jail terms.

Delhi too wants custody of Anup Chetia, a top ULFA leader who completed his jail term for entering Bangladesh on forged papers several years ago but is being held back.

India alleges that most of the top ULFA leadership, including its chief Paresh Barua, live in Bangladesh under assumed names, have invested in business and some have married locally to raise families, while their cadres stage operations in Assam in India's northeastern region.