Author: Our Special Correspondent
Publication: The Telegraph
Date: July 11, 2003
Bengal's ruling Left agrees with
the BJP-led Union government on the need for firm action to check infiltration,
Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee said today.
The chief minister told the Assembly
that the situation on the Bangladesh border called for the toughest of
measures as waves of infiltrators were causing tension in the socio-political
structure.
"Our government can no longer tolerate
infiltration across the border which has reached alarming proportions.
Enough is enough, this can't go on any longer," he said, replying to a
debate on the Rs 1,286-crore police budget. "We, in the government, support
the policy of the Centre in dealing sternly with illegal entrants from
Bangladesh and the action taken from time to time by the BSF in pushing
back these infiltrators."
Bhattacharjee's comments come on
the heels of his meeting last week with deputy Prime Minister L.K. Advani
in Calcutta. They discussed infiltration and the attendant subversive activities
that were affecting the country's economy and security.
Advani, who shares a warm relationship
with Bhattacharjee, feels strongly about infiltration and has been calling
for a tough campaign to end it.
His party, the BJP - an ally of
Mamata Banerjee's Trinamul Congress - has been seeking to set up bases
in the border districts where there have been sharp demographic changes.
Listing steps taken to prevent infiltration
across the state's 2,216-km border, the chief minister said issue of ration
cards at block levels in border districts has been stopped. "No ration
card will be issued without permission from the district magistrate."
The Bengal government has also agreed
to the Centre's proposal to introduce identity cards for citizens in the
border areas. A pilot project would shortly be started at Lalbagh and Jiagunj
in Murshidabad district. "We feel that introduction of identity cards in
the border areas will help prevent infiltration." Bhattacharjee said work
was on to complete barbed-wire fencing and the border roads network.
He criticised what he described
as the "painful" role of the BSF, blaming corruption of a section of the
force, inadequate securitymen and the enormity of the task of border policing
for the growing infiltration.
"It is mainly the duty of the BSF
to control infiltration across the border but in many cases it is unable
to do it. The number of BSF battalions at the border falls short of the
sanctioned strength, making it extremely difficult for it to effectively
guard the porous border."
That the state government is attaching
utmost importance to the problem of infiltration was also evident from
Bhattacharjee's speech where he mentioned the recent attempt by Bangladesh
to push in about 200 snake charmers - all Bangladeshi nationals - into
India on the plea that they were Indians.
"Though the move was foiled by a
determined BSF, it was apparent that Bangladesh was making a futile bid
to establish, for the first time, that there is large-scale infiltration
of Indian nationals into Bangladesh," he said.
There is thus need for much greater
vigilance on our part," the chief minister said.
