Sanjeev Pargal
JAMMU, June 20: The Parliamentary Standing Com-mittee (PSC) on Home Affairs today held high level review of situation prevailing along the International Border in Jammu sector with top officers of BSF, civil and police administration and inter-acted with border dwellers, living extreme on the IB. The PSC after three days visit to Jammu would leave for Kashmir on four-day visit tomorrow for similar review of the situation.
Headed by P Bhattacharya and comprising 10 other members, both from Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha, the PSC members reviewed entire gamut of the situation prevailing on the International Border in Jammu sector by visiting several forward Border Out Posts (BOPs) in RS Pura, Arnia and Samba sectors.
Official sources told the Excelsior that the PSC on Home Affairs visited Octroi forward post in RS Pura sector, Pittal in Arnia sector and Jakh in Samba sector during their day-long visit to International Border in Jammu, where they had detailed review of situation with special focus on Border Management and Modernization of Police and Central Armed Police Forces (CAPFs) and organizations.
They had detailed view of the IB, infiltration attempts by the militants, which have been zero this year due to strict surveillance maintained by the BSF and incidents of cross-border shelling and firing, which too have been very minimum. The PSC members were briefed in detail on all aspects of the situation.
IG BSF, Jammu Frontiers, DK Upadhyaya gave detailed briefing to the PSC members at BSF Headquarters Paloura last evening including deployment of security forces, modernized gadgetry on the IB and all other security related aspects regarding Border Management System. He told the PSC members about fool-proof security measures taken on the border to prevent any kind of infiltration attempts by the militants from Pakistan.
Divisional Commissioner, Jammu Pawan Kotwal and IGP Jammu Danesh Rana also briefed the PSC members on the situation.
Sources said the PSC members were concerned about safety of the civilians living along the International Border and, in this connection, they examined bunkers being constructed by the Government for safety and security of the civilians during cross-border shelling and firing from Pakistan though no such major incident has been reported on the Jammu borders this year so far.
The PSC members inter-acted with the border people at various places and listened to the problems faced by them. They told the border dwellers that problems of the people were high on their agenda.
The people reiterated their demand for compensation of land falling ahead of the fencing, 5-marla plots in safer zones, speedy construction of bunkers and increase in ex-gratia for the losses suffered during Pakistan shelling and firing.
DIG BSF, Jammu Frontiers, Dharmendra Pareek said the PSC members patiently listened to problems and difficulties of the border people. He added that the delegation was satisfied with efforts of border management in Jammu region.
The PSC members would undertake four-day visit to Kashmir from June 21 to 24 to review situation on borders, internal security etc and meet top brass of security apart from political leadership, They will also visit the border States of Punjab, Rajasthan and Gujarat before finalizing their report and submitting it to the Parliament.
Few days back, the Union Home Ministry had deputed high level team to the International Border headed by former Union Home Secretary Madhukar Gupta for detailed study on Border Management and suggest measures to completely plug the borders from infiltration.
The PSC members headed by P Bhattacharya, Chairman, who visited the International Border, included D Raja, Adhir Ranjan Chowdhary, Bishnu Pada, Bheemrao B Patil, Baijayant ‘Jay’ Panda, S Selvakumara, P Nagarajan, Dilip Patel, Vimal Kumar and S Banerjee.
Vimal Kumar is Director Rajya Sabha Secretariat whiles Banerjee is Rajya Sabha PS to Chairman while all others were members of Parliament.
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