BSF chief D K Pathak tours Gurdaspur area along India-Pakistan border

NEW DELHI: BSF chief D K Pathak today toured the forward border areas of Gurdaspur along the Indo-Pak International Border (IB) in Punjab and asked his men to mount effective vigil in these areas.

Pathak made an on-spot assessment of the border areas including the suspected locations and riverine areas of Ravi where from it is suspected that the three terrorists crossed over from Pakistan to perpetrate the killings on July 27 in the Dina Nagar area of the district.

Officials said the Director General (DG) asked the troops and commanders guarding the frontier to re-strategise their security drills so that the border areas along this frontier can be dominated effectively.

He was also briefed by senior officials of the Border Security Forces' Punjab frontier about the challenges being faced by the troops in securing the large riverine and other land areas.

"The intensity of patrols and their pattern will be tweaked and re-strategised along the Indo-Pak IB in this frontier. This is a normal course of action that the force keeps doing every now and then. It is one of the steps that has been decided to be initiated," a senior official said.

The DG is expected to send a detailed report in this regard to the Union Home Ministry soon.

Seven people, including a Superintendent of Police, were killed by the three terrorists on July 27 in Gurdaspur before a crack team of Punjab Police commandos killed all of them.

A probe has found that the terrorists who carried out the attack had come from Pakistan using Ravi river and apparently had plans to target one more area.

Giving details of the probe, Punjab DGP Sumedh Singh Saini had said that the terrorists had taken the route from Dhussi Bandh (Ravi river) right along the IB to the railway track where they planted bombs and then came to Dina Nagar.

In Delhi, official sources said the probe indicates that the terrorists, suspectedly belonging to Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba, had entered India through Bamiyal village and planned to target Gurudaspur civil lines also besides the police station.