BSF can now search and arrest deeper inside Assam, Bengal and Punjab

The Home Ministry has extended the jurisdiction of the Border Security Force in West Bengal, Punjab and Assam giving them powers of arrest, search and seizure deeper inside these states.

TOI reported that the area of jurisdiction now is a 50km belt running along the national border inside these states -- whereas earlier it was 15km -- under Section 139 of the Border Security Force Act 1968 which enables the Centre to make such changes. .

It means officers of the BSF, like their counterparts in the state police, can make arrests, carry out searches and seize material in these areas.


The border stretch under BSF in Gujarat was reduced in Gujarat from 80 kms to 50 kms, in Rajasthan it remains the same, while no limit was prescribed for the northeastern states of Meghalaya, Nagaland, Mizoram, Tripura and Manipur.

The MHA notification said the central government has revised the ‘schedule’ specifying the border stretch where BSF would have powers of search, seizure and arrest under Acts like Passport Act, NDPS Act, Customs Act as well as Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC) to Manipur, Mizoram, Nagaland, Tripura, and Meghalaya; UTs of J&K and Ladakh; and a 50km-belt in Gujarat, Rajasthan, Punjab, Bengal and Assam.

BSF sources told TOI that this would empower its personnel to carry out operations against narcotics or arms trafficking and illegal infiltration seamlessly in border stretches.

It is not known whether the non-BJP governments in West Bengal and Punjab were taken into confidence before the move and whether any of them would take it up as an encroachment on the federal structure.

Orders passed Section 139 of the BSF Act must be laid in parliament and passed by both Houses.