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Indo-Bangla : Outpost shield for eastern front |
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The growing unease at the Indo-Bangladesh border due to increase in trafficking of humans, narcotics and arms has finally made the Union Home Ministry think and act.
The ministry has decided to implement the recommendations made by the group of ministers (GoM) on internal security in 1999. Paying heed to the GoM recommendations, the ministry has decided to drastically increase the number of BSF outposts from 550 to about 1,220 on the Indo-Bangla border by 2006-end. This will correspond with the completion of fencing on the 3,000-km-long portion of the border leaving out the riverine part.
If the number of outposts is increased, it will be almost twice as much as the number of outposts on the Pakistan border that has 650 outposts.
The GoM had recommended to increase the border outposts to 1,250 so that the distance between two outposts can be brought down to about 3.5 km. As of now, the average distance between two nearest outposts is 8 to 12 km, making it difficult to check cross-border illegal transactions.
‘The western border has almost been made secure through fencing. In most of the places, we have three rungs of security forces, which has brought down infiltration rate. The threat, however, is more from the porous eastern border, which is also being used by Pakistan-based militants to sneak into Indian hinterland,’ said a senior Home Ministry official.
The BSF has also been asked to do a pilot project to make the 260-km-long border in North Bengal floodlit.
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