Bharat’s two major borders with Pakistan
and Bangladesh will be completely secured in the next two years, with work
underway to plug gaps in about 60 km stretch along these two fronts, said Union
Home Minister Amit Shah on Friday.
Shah was speaking after taking salute
from a ceremonial parade of the Border Security Force (BSF) on the occasion of
its 59th Raising Day celebrations in Jharkhand’s Hazaribagh.
The minister said the Narendra Modi Government
has fenced and plugged gaps in about 560 km of the India-Pakistan and
India-Bangladesh borders in the last nine years since it came to power at the
Centre.
He said all the gaps in these two
borders on India’s western and eastern flank respectively are being plugged and
work in only about 60 km is continuing.
In the next two years we will entirely
secure these two borders, Shah said.
The two borders – 2,290 km of the
India-Pakistan International Border and 4,096 km of the India-Bangladesh border
– are marked by long riverine, mountainous and marshy areas where it is very
difficult to erect fences and hence the BSF and other agencies use technical
gadgets to check infiltration.
“I firmly believe that a country cannot
develop and prosper if its borders are not secure…the government of Prime
Minister Narendra Modi has led the country to the moon with the Chandrayaan
mission, G20 Summit and brought the economy from the 11th to the fifth spot,
and this was all possible due to our forces deployed for securing the borders
like the BSF,” he said.
“You, the BSF, are the essential pillar
of this journey,” the minister told the BSF personnel at the ‘Meru’ training
camp here.
“I believe that the border fence does
not alone protect the country, it only helps in rendering this task. It is the
brave BSF jawan who does this task,” he said.
The border force, about 2.65 lakh in
strength, was raised on December 1, 1965, and is primarily tasked to guard the
over 6,386 km-long Indian fronts with Pakistan and Bangladesh.
The Home Minister asserted that whenever
a BJP Government took the reins of power in the country, border security was
prioritised, from the government of former PM Atal Bihari Vajpayee to the Modi Government.
While Atal Ji’s (Atal Bihari Vajpayee) Government
brought an “integrated” approach for border security, the Modi Government
assimilated security, development and democratic processes along with strong
infrastructure and initiation of welfare measures for the local population
living on the front, he said.
“We strengthened rail, road, waterways
and telephone communication connectivity apart from land trade,” he said.
The Home Minister said his government
created 452 new border posts, 510 observation towers, got electricity
connection to 637 borders posts while 500 such facilities were linked with
piped water across various fronts over the last nine years.
Talking about Left Wing Extremism (LWE),
Shah said the country was close to eliminating this armed and violent movement
being carried out by Maoist cadres.
In the last ten years, he said, the
incidents of Naxal violence have gone down by 52 per cent, deaths in these
incidents declined by 70 per cent and the number of affected police stations
has come down from 495 to 176.
“The last strike against LWE by forces
like the BSF, CRPF and ITBP is in the process. We are determined to end
Naxalism in the country,” he said.
The minister added that as many as 199
new security forces camps were established in the LWE affected areas over the
last ten years.
“I am sure we will win this battle,” he
said.
In the last ten years of the Modi
government, we have been able to win the battle in the “hotspots” of Jammu and
Kashmir, LWE and insurgency in the north east and the security forces have been
able to establish their domination in Jammu and Kashmir, he said.
PTI
