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| BSF to undertake IED detection drive | | |  New Delhi, Apr 10:
Agencies
The BSF will undertake an anti-IED sweep along hundreds of kilometres of the India-Pakistan border in Punjab following the first-time recovery of such bombs leading to one jawan being injured, official sources said on Thursday.
The force also recently shifted the jurisdiction of about 20.3 kilometres from the total 553 kilometres under its Punjab frontier, headquartered in Jalandhar, to the neighbouring Jammu frontier for “better security coordination” in the riverine areas that run along Pathankot in Punjab.
The 2,289-kilometre-long India-Pakistan international border runs from Jammu in the north to Punjab, Rajasthan and Gujarat in the west and the Border Security Force (BSF) is tasked with guarding it.
Its Jammu frontier guards 191.66 kilometres of the international border, apart from 40 kilometres of the Line of Control (LoC) along Jammu and Kashmir.
“A massive sanitation drive to find possible improvised explosive devices (IED) will be undertaken in the Punjab frontier following the incident on Wednesday where two such bombs were recovered from a farming field ahead of the fence in Gurdaspur district. Anti-sabotage checks are already being undertaken at the site where the IED was detected,” a senior officer said.
Officials had said this was the first time that an IED was recovered at this strategic and sensitive border, prone to drugs- and weapons-carrying Pakistani drones and infiltration by terrorists.
About 70 per cent of the 532 kilometres of the international border in Punjab is cultivable and visited by farmers for tilling of the land, according to the officials.
A major portion of this fertile land is ahead of the fence and, hence, the BSF will have to ensure that there are no IEDs hidden there that may hurt troops or farmers or local civilians who frequent these areas, they said.
There is a strong suspicion the IED was placed by elements from across the border as the area where it was found was ahead of the fence and that its assembly was of a “military precision”, according to the officials.
The BSF is expected to raise the issue with the Pakistan Rangers in the coming days.
The force will soon bring additional ground detection equipment and sniffer dogs to undertake the anti-IED sanitisation drive, the officials said.
BSF officials in Punjab said the IED detection on Wednesday had opened a new front for security agencies alongside the continuing menace of Chinese-made Pakistani drones entering into India to mostly drop narcotics, and sometimes small arms and ammunition.
More than 200 drones were seized by the BSF from the Punjab border last year while the number of such seizures was 107 in 2023.
About 60 drones have been seized this year. |
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