Border sealed in Barak Valley areas

From The Telegraph OUR CORRESPONDENT

Eagle-eyed Silchar March 28: Elaborate security arrangements have been made in the three Barak Valley districts ahead of next month’s Assembly elections. The BSF has sealed the 132-km-long Indo-Bangladesh border in Cachar and Karimganj districts to thwart any infiltration attempt by militants. Other paramilitary forces have been deployed along Hailakandi district’s 70-km-long border with Mizoram to prevent trouble during the polls. A senior BSF official in the sector headquarters of their Cachar-Mizoram Frontier Force in Masimpur cantonment near here said the BSF had been put on high alert along the porous border that Cachar and Karimganj districts share with Sylhet division of Bangladesh to check any attempt by fundamentalist forces to whip up communal passion during the time of election. He added that patrol by the BSF, equipped with modern arms and night vision devices like thermal imagers and battle field surveillance radars, had been stepped up in the two border districts of Cachar and Karimganj that have altogether 54 border outposts (BoPs) and 20 improvised ones. Superintendent of police, Hailakandi Hemanta Bhattacharjee yesterday said BSF jawans from Jammu and Kashmir, trained in counter-insurgency operations, had already been deployed along the district’s boundary with insurgency-hit Mizoram to combat militant outfits like the United Democratic Liberation Army (Udla), Ataur Bahini and Bru militants active in Mizoram’s Kolasib district. The intelligence agencies have already provided feedback to the Hailakandi district administration about stray incidents of muscle-flexing by goons in the district’s sensitive constituency of Katlicherra along its border with Mizoram. Excise and border affairs minister and Congress leader Goutam Roy is contesting for the sixth time from Katlicherra. Last week, there was an exchange of fire between an unidentified gang and Assam Police Battalion near Vaichera in the forest-infested Katlicherra constituency. As many as 107 and 60 polling booths, of a total of 187 polling booths in Hailakandi, have been identified as sensitive and critical, according to deputy commissioner B.C. Bora. The SP also said police in his district have also been asked to keep vigil over possible arms transfer.

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