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Bengal to take up border fencing

Galvanised into action by the alarming rate of infiltration and stepped up activities of the Inter Services Intelligence of Pakistan and other foreign agencies, the West Bengal government has decided to fence 900 km of porous border with Bangladesh next year.

State Home Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharya told reporters after a high-level meeting in Calcutta last night that urgent steps were being initiated to implement the project with central funds, in order to protect the state's economy which was being threatened by the abnormally high migration continuing for years from across the border.

Expressing serious concern over the phenomenon, the minister admitted that a new dimension was being added with some foreign agencies, including the ISI, terrorist organisations and fundamentalist groups, taking full advantage of porous border to carry out their activities.

While some ISI agents were arrested recently for trying to create disturbances at Siliguri from their nearest base in Kathmandu, fundamentalist groups were found to be very much active near the Bangladesh border with Murshidabad district. ''It is my belief that some foreign agencies are also at work even in Calcutta.''

Bhattacharya said with the completion of the project, 1400 km of the 1600-km border with Bangladesh will be fenced.

The state has a total of 2200-km border line with Bangladesh, of which 600 km is riverine area, and about 500 km has already been fenced.

Yesterday's meeting empowered the district magistrates to acquire land for fencing.

The meeting, which was attended by besides Bhattacharya, the chief secretary, the home secretary, several district magistrates and high police officials, also noted that trans-border smuggling and illegal transportation of essential commodities had increased manifold.

It had become impossible to effectively man the entire border with only 20 battalions of Border Security Force available from the Centre instead of the required 34 battalions, Bhattacharya said.

He said the state government had already received an indication that the Centre would release the required funds for the project next year.

In the meantime, the state government was continuing discussions with the Centre on maintaining the required 150 metre of ''no man's land'' before erecting fences as 450 Indian villages were found to be located along the stretch, making it difficult to adhere to the rule.

He said the government would also take up the construction of 134 km border road to complete the undone work for a total of 1700 km stretch.

To contain the process of legalisation the infiltrators had been adopting to settle down in India he said, and that the state government had already empowered the district magistrates in the bordering areas as the sole arbitrator for issuing ration cards.

Earlier, block development officers or panchayat samitis were the issuing authorities.

For the first time, the minister also admitted that some of the people driven out of Bombay last year on the ground of their nationality were Bangladeshis. The issue had then raised a controversy between the governments of Maharashtra and West Bengal last year after a group of alleged Bangladeshis being escorted by the Maharashtra police for deportation to Bangladesh were snatched away from inside a train compartment by a mob that claimed that the deportees were Indians.

Bhattacharjee said the situation had ''surpassed all limits'' and the state could no longer afford to absorb foreign nationals.

Although Bhattacharya declined to provide figure of illegal migrants, he virtually accepted the BJP's allegation of massive infiltration into the state.

According to the BJP, more than ten million Bangladeshis have sneaked into West Bengal.

Bhattacharya said Bangladeshis, both Hindus and Muslims, had been pouring into the state. ''Most of them are poor people moving out of their land in search of livelihood for this. We don't want to blame Bangladesh which is a friendly country.''

He said the situation was aggravated with Bangladesh Rifles jawans often refusing to accept those who had been already identified as Bangladeshis by a court. ''The result is that our jails have run out of capacity to accommodate these people.''

UNI

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