Help provide land for fencing along India-Bangladesh border: BSF to Centre

KOLKATA: The BSF has urged the Centre to help make land available along the India-Bangladesh border for fencing to stop infiltration. The paramilitary force has turned to the MHA since the Mamata Banerjee-led state government has refused to heed its repeated requests through about a dozen letters and reminders, citing the poll promise in its manifesto.

In March 2015, Sandeep Salunke, IG of the South Bengal Frontier had written to the then chief secretary of West Bengal Sanjay Mitra, invoking “urgency provision of Land Acquisition Act 2013”. Ten months later, the BSF is yet to receive a reply.

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The BSF cannot acquire land since land is a state subject. “We have written to the BSF headquarters and it has been referred to the home ministry,” said a senior BSF official. In a recent visit to the border areas in Bengal and Assam, home minister Rajnath Singh said a fence would be erected along the porous parts. Only 366 km of 915 km border under the South Bengal Frontier is fenced.

“We are trying our best to secure the border. We hope that the state government will provide us with the required land soon,” Salunke told ET, With just 9 km of the 250 km border being fenced in Kolkata sector, covering North 24 Parganas, South 24 Parganas and part of Nadia district, the BSF wants to ramp up security.