Kolkata, Jan 1 (PTI) — Laser walls and smart sensors will be installed at the Indo-Bangla International Border in West Bengal to plug the porous riverine and unmanned terrain and keep a tight vigil to check infiltration and terrorism.
"Very soon laser walls and smart sensors will be installed at the Indo-Bangla border especially in the porous riverine area and in the areas that do not have proper fencing. It will be done on an urgent basis so that it becomes operational by the next year," a top BSF official told PTI on the condition of anonymity.
According to BSF officials, a pilot project will take off within a few months in the Indo-Bangla riverine border area in West Bengal.
"The pilot project will start in a few months once we get the equipment and other things that are needed. The areas where lasers and sensors will be placed have already been identified," another official said.
A team of technical experts will handle a pilot project for deploying technological solutions in riverine areas and the areas that lack fences.
"The smart sensors will be monitored through a satellite-based signal command system. They will have night and fog operability tools. The mechanism is [such that a] sensor blips and alerts border guards," said the official.
The paramilitary force is using the Farheen laser wall technology at the Indo-Pakistan border and has reaped benefits through better management of the borders.
BSF DG KK Sharma and other top officials of the force recently toured the Indo-Bangla border area in West Bengal and Tripura.
According to BSF sources, installing laser walls and remote sensors is part of the Centre's plan of keeping a tight vigil at the Indo-Bangla border, following inputs from intelligence agencies that terrorists and anti-national elements are exploiting the unfenced areas and riverine borders.
"The matter of laser walls and smart sensors in West Bengal was on the back burner. But it came up after the terror attack in Dhaka a few months ago as there were intelligence inputs that terrorists and anti-national elements were exploiting the unfenced areas and riverine borders," said another official.
Of the 4,096 km-long Indo-Bangladesh border, 2,216.7 km is in West Bengal.
The decision to install laser walls in areas where barbed wire fences could not be erected due to the treacherous terrain or marshy riverine topography was taken by the BSF two years ago.
The Union Home Ministry and BSF expedited the installation and activation of laser walls on the western front after the Pathankot terror attack. It was suspected that terrorists had breached the border in Bamiyal area in Punjab.
Meanwhile, the proposal submitted by the BSF's South Bengal frontier to the West Bengal government for land needed for erecting fences in a highly sensitive 81.7 km area has been approved.
The state government has approved it and asked the district magistrates to procure land and hand it over to us, the BSF said.
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