Early TImes Report
Jammu, Jan 30: Taking serious concern of a 400-mt tunnel at the Indo-Pak border, BSF has set up a high-level board for meticulous scanning of the international boundary to rule out existence of such underground passages, a senior official said today.
"IG BSF (Punjab Range) will head the board," Inspector General of the border guarding force, which protects 2,289 km of the IB along Pakistan, Rajiv Krishna told reporters here. BSF authorities had detected the 400-mt tunnel from Pakistan to India along Indo-Pak Border in Samba district of Jammu and Kashmir on July 28 last year.
"It is a matter of very serious concern. This exercise is not only being carried out in Jammu frontier sector, but also along the entire western border," Krishna said.
He said scientists and experts from various institutions are involved in the exercise and interim measures along the Jammu frontier are being taken.
"We have identified certain places based on the soil and quality and other geographical and topographical features along with intelligence inputs," he said, adding, "We made changes in our deployment plan accordingly."
A team of scientists have recently visited Jammu frontier's border in connection with detection of the tunnel, he said.
The Samba tunnel, which was apparently dug for infiltration and smuggling, was detected on July 28 last year after an area caved-in near the border fencing near Chillayari Border Out Post of BSF.
The tunnel at a depth of 25-ft had been dug out between two sides along the IB on India's Chillayari BoP and Pakistan's Lumberiyal BoP. It had air supply through a 2-inch pipe.
The tunnel was discovered accidentally by a farmer of Chachwal village, prompting the BSF to conduct an exhaustive survey of all those vulnerable spots along the border to detect any possible signs of a tunnel similar to the one unearthed.
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