Delhi to floodlight entire border with Bangladesh
India has decided to go ahead with the plan to floodlight the entire border with Bangladesh to tackle trans-border crimes.
The Cabinet Committee on Security Affairs cleared a proposal to put up flood lights along the entire Indo-Bangladesh border at a cost of Rs 1.327 crore at a meeting in New Delhi on Thursday.
A pilot project for floodlighting has already covered a stretch of 277 km in West Bengal and the government now wants to cover the rest of the border areas in the State in next five years.
India shares 4,095 km of land border with Bangladesh across West Bengal, Assam, Tripura, Meghalaya and Mizoram.
The decision to install flood lights along the entire border followed the success of the pilot project that has reduced incidents of trans-border crimes like cattle smuggling, illegal movement of people and fence-cutting, Indian Home Ministry sources said.
India also plans to complete fencing nearly 3,300 km border with Bangladesh. The border fencing remains a contentious issue between India and Bangladesh.
However, talks between the two countries at the home secretary level have been able to reduce some of the divergence with Bangladesh allowing the completion of fencing along some portions of the border which it had opposed earlier.
Last month, BDR gave BSF a list of 1,591 criminals and fugitives who have been hiding in India and requested BSF to hand over the criminals to them.
The BSF, meantime, handed over a list of 141 camps of Indian insurgents in Bangladesh territory, a claim the BDR officials termed “unfounded”.
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