Amit Shah starts 4-state tour today to review border security

NEW DELHI: Days after declaring that a technology boost would transform the country’s eastern and western borders into ‘smart borders’ amid intensified curbs on infiltration, home minister Amit Shah will be touring border areas of four states — Rajasthan, Gujarat, Tripura and West Bengal — over the next month to review their security.

Shah will start with a visit to BSF’s Sanchu border post in Bikaner, Rajasthan, on Tuesday morning, followed by a tour of Harami Nala in the Sir Creek area of Gujarat on May 29.

At Sanchu, the home minister will inspect the border post, interact with the BSF personnel on duty and launch welfare schemes for them. Later in the day, he will chair a meeting to review the security arrangements in five border districts of Rajasthan. The meeting will be attended by senior officers of the ministry of home affairs, Rajasthan govt, BSF and the district magistrates and superintendents of police concerned.

On May 29, Shah is due to visit Bhuj, Gujarat. He will inspect the BSF post there and also pay a visit to Harami Nala in the Sir Creek area.

In June, he is slated to visit posts along the eastern border in Tripura and Bengal. On June 5, Shah will visit the border areas of Tripura to assess the security arrangements.

On June 15, he will make a stop near the international border in Bengal and inspect the BSF posts there.

Delivering the Rustomji memorial lecture at the BSF investiture ceremony here recently, Shah had asked BSF to take the responsibility of detecting and checking infiltration, saying that it was aimed at unnaturally introducing demographic changes in border areas. He exhorted BSF to engage with the local administration and police so that a structured mechanism could be put in place to prevent illegal border crossings and expel those who have already infiltrated.

Shah said the ‘smart border’ on the eastern and western sides shall deploy the latest tech solutions like drones, radars, smart cameras, etc to detect and counter infiltration, narcotics smuggling, cattle smuggling, fake Indian currency notes circulation and drones ferrying arms and drugs.

He said with BJP now in office in border states of Tripura, Assam and Bengal, “every single infiltrator will be expelled from the country”.