Sanjeev Pargal
JAMMU, Jan 5: In the aftermath of the arrest of two Pakistani nationals and recovery of narcotics, currency and Pakistani SIM cards from the villages located close to the International Border (IB) in Jammu sector, police authorities have decided to conduct an exhaustive survey of the population living in the forward areas including the persons employed by them for different purposes like agriculture activity.
Police have ordered the survey in all three border districts including Kathua, Samba and Jammu, where a number of villages were located extreme on the IB, some of them ahead of the border fencing. This has been done to weed out foreign nationals, if any, living or being harboured by anyone in the border belt, official sources told the Excelsior.
They said the survey was ordered keeping in view the recent arrests of two Pakistani nationals from border villages of Hariya Chak and Panyari in Hiranagar sector of Kathua district and several incidents pertaining to recovery of currency, Pakistani SIM cards, narcotics and mobile phones from the border areas, which the anti-national elements had to pick up but were unable to do so due to alertness of security forces.
Top brass of police have asked all police stations and police posts, which have jurisdiction over the border areas to conduct an exhaustive survey and prepare data of all the people living in the border villages with special focus on those who have recently shifted to these areas and the persons employed by the inhabitants for agriculture and other purposes in their houses.
The authorities have given a time of one month to all police stations and police posts to complete the survey and prepare a complete data of the people putting up in the border villages. The International Boundary runs from Lakhanpur to Akhnoor covering three border districts of Kathua, Samba and Jammu.
Justifying the special and exclusive survey, police said: “it had become a necessity in view of the reports that one of the Pakistani nationals was saying at border village for past two and a half years. Apart from this, there had been frequent incidents of Pakistani smugglers throwing packs of currency, narcotics, Pakistani SIM cards and mobile telephones in forward villages in RS Pura, Arnia etc, which had to be picked up by the smugglers on the Indian side but security forces and police recovered them well before they could land in the hands of anti-national elements’’.
Sources said the survey would help police in identification of foreign nationals, if any, putting up in the border villages like Imran and Raju Ali. There had been reports with the security agencies that even some Bangladeshis and Myanmarese had also been engaged by the people as agriculture workers etc in the border areas, who could also become “potential security risk’’.
Recently, a Myanmar national had died in a shell explosion at Channi Himmat.
Sources said in the series of recoveries of currency, Pakistani SIM cards, narcotics etc thrown from Pakistan side of the border, not even a single anti-national element or cross-border smuggler could be identified or arrested, who had to receive the consignment on this side. They didn’t rule out the possibility that some persons putting up in the border areas had to receive the consignment but didn’t get a chance to pick it up due to heavy presence of security forces.
Few days back, BSF had arrested a Pakistani boy Imran when he was trying to cross back to Pakistan. Later, it was established that Imran was living with Noon Gujjar for past two and a half years at forward village of Hariya Chak in Hiranagar sector. A couple of days later, Army picked up Raju Ali from Panyari, adjacent to Hariya Chack, who was also being doubted as Pakistani national though some versions suggested that he could be an Indian abandoned by his family from childhood in Old Delhi.
Both Pakistani nationals along with Noon Gujjar were yesterday sent to the Joint Interrogation Centre (JIC), Jammu for sustained questioning.
Sources said the survey would help police in preparing and maintaining data of the people putting up in extreme border areas and weed out the foreign nationals.
In the meanwhile, police has also asked the people of border villages that they should inform them if any foreign national was living with them or they were aware of any such national’s presence in their area.
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