Shillong, March 1 (IANS) Meghalaya Chief Minister Mukul Sangma Thursday regretted that the international border in India’s northeastern states was not manned as efficiently as in the western states.
‘The northeastern border has not been as stringently manned unlike the western sector, so we have requested the home ministry to ask the BSF (Border Security Force) to intensify their patrol on the border,’ Sangma told reporters after a review meeting with Union Minister of State for Home Affairs Mullappally Ramachandran.
‘We are trying to fence the international border to the best of our abilities,’ Ramachandran said.
India’s landlocked northeast shares a 4,500-km border with Bangladesh, Bhutan, Myanmar and China but connects with the rest of India by a narrow 22-km strip of land called the Siliguri corridor.
Ramachandran is scheduled to visit Dawki on the India-Bangladesh border Friday to get first-hand knowledge on the ground situation and also to oversee the fencing of the international border.
‘We have demanded from the home ministry to direct the BSF to intensify patrolling along these vulnerable areas,’ Sangma said.
Due to Meghalaya’s insistence for better border management, the home ministry had recently deputed BSF’s special director general to visit the border in the Meghalaya sector as a priority, Sangma said.
