Home secretary Ajay Bhalla to visit Bengal, likely to meet top BSF officers
Ajay Bhalla will meet West Bengal chief secretary H K Dwivedi in Kolkata on Friday to discuss pending land acquisition for construction of border fence, road projects, BOPs and Integrated Check Posts
Union home secretary Ajay Bhalla will meet West Bengal chief secretary H K Dwivedi in Kolkata on Friday to discuss pending land acquisition for construction of border fence, road projects, Border Out Posts (BOPs) and Integrated Check Posts (ICPs), people familiar with the matter said.
Bhalla is also expected to meet officers of the Border Security Force (BSF), coast guard and district magistrates from border areas to discuss security-related issues.
The Centre in October extended the jurisdiction of BSF in states such as West Bengal, allowing it to carry out search, seizure and arrests within 50 km from the international borders. This limit was earlier 15km.
West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee has objected to the move. She wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi on October 24 saying the decision was meant to torture common people and suffered from serious constitutional impropriety.
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Officials, who did not want to be named, said Bhalla may discuss coordination related issues with the West Bengal government, particularly on security matters.
Among other key issues to be discussed are security arrangements at ICPs, which are key to trade and easier movement of people across friendly countries. The ICPs are entry and exit points on India’s land borders and house facilities such as customs, immigration, border security, quarantine, among others, within a single facilitation zone. In 2019-20, 40% of India’s total trade with Bangladesh, Nepal, Myanmar, and Pakistan took place through the six ICPs at Agartala, Petrapole, Raxaul, Jogbani, Moreh and Attari.
Bhalla’s visit comes a week after the National Investigation Agency caught a Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh terrorist from West Bengal’s South 24 Parganas district.
Apart from work on new BOPs, security at unfenced border, infiltration, smuggling of drugs, fake currency notes and cattle will also be discussed by Bhalla with the security forces, people cited above said.