Deploying foolproof technology to plug border gaps: BSF DG

Outgoing BSF DG K K Sharma Friday said the border guarding force is deploying "foolproof" smart technology tools to plug vulnerable gaps along India's borders with Pakistan and Bangladesh to check infiltration by illegal migrants, criminals and terrorists.

The Border Security Force (BSF) chief said they had been successful in "containing" the influx of Rohingya Muslims into India, after they fled Myanmar in large numbers.

"We have successfully contained the influx of Rohingya into India. I am happy to say that we have not allowed Rohingya into India," Sharma told reporters here.

"Also, we are deploying smart and foolproof technology solutions to plug gaps along the two borders that we guard."

While the first such "smart fence" pilot project was inaugurated by Home Minister Rajnath Singh along the Indo-Pak border in Jammu sometime ago, a similar project along the India-Bangladesh border in Assam's Dhubri is expected to be launched by the end of this year.

 

Asked to comment on his recent statement that West Bengal was "slightly friendly" to the Rohingya people and had set up special camps for about 70 such families, the DG said, "It was a statement of fact."

"I will not like to say anything more as I don't want to create any fresh controversy," the BSF Director General (DG) added.

He also said he has "nothing to hide" when he was asked about his presence at an event of the RSS-backed organisation Seema Jagran Manch in Kolkata early this year.

"They (the organisation) are doing civic action in the border areas. If any NGO seeks our help or seeks information as to what we do on border, we inform them. I did it openly in uniform and I was not hiding. I told them what we do and we did it in public view," Sharma said.

"Is there a ban on it?" he asked.

He added that incidents of illegal migrants crossing over to India from the land border has gone down to a large extent.

"It is not easy at all. We dominate the borders," he said.