The Bangladesh Army has destroyed its stockpile of antipersonnel mines within the 2005 deadline as a signatory to the Antipersonnel Mine (APM) Ban Convention.

The Bangladesh Army in the last four months has destroyed 1,88,227 APMs, the cheapest offensive weapon against aggressors, army sources said.

The force started destroying its stock on November 2 last year and accomplished the goal on February 28, the sources added.

The APMs were brought to the Gazipur Ordnance factory from different cantonments and destroyed there.

"We've successfully destroyed all the landmines from our military defence system without suffering any causality," a senior army official yesterday told The Daily Star asking not to be identified.

Bangladesh was the first South Asian country to sign the convention and ratified it in September 2000. The country also pledged to destroy the APMs by 2005 at an antipersonnel mine conference in Bangkok in 2003.

However, all the South Asian countries have not yet signed the convention and a few are still using the APM in their military defence systems.

India and Pakistan have about 11 million APMs between them, while the US admits to stockpiling over 10 millions, said an online news item of the UN office for the Humanitarian Affairs.

Bangladesh has also signed the Chemical Weapon Convention that imposed a ban on development, production, stockpiling and use of chemical weapons in its military defence.

It has also signed the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), an accord against nuclear proliferation and test of nuclear weapons.