With terror threat looming large over border areas across Jammu frontier, the district authorities in Samba have directed the principals and headmasters of all schools to fortify boundary walls of school buildings and ensure presence of security guards at the entrance gates to check entry of suspected persons.
Following two back-to-back terror strikes groups of Pakistan terrorists in Samba and Kathua districts in March last, the entire security grid has been strengthened along the Jammu-Pathankot National Highway to prevent similar strikes. Besides, a need was felt to improve the security of the school buildings located along the border to prevent any hostage crisis.
In the recent attack, two fidayeen came close to Army Public School in Samba and were pinned down by the alert jawans before neutralising them in the day long operations on March 21. The decision followed a high-level review meeting chaired by the Union Home Secretary lC Goyal in Jammu on Thursday.
Besides touring border areas and some segments of the line of Control, Goyal also chaired security review meeting to address the security concerns of different heads of security agencies in the wake of rising infiltration bids and audacious militant strikes.
In the coming days, the snow will melt and the mountain passes would start reopening in the higher reaches of Pir Panjal range and in North Kashmir, small groups of infiltrators would be pushed inside the Indian territory to execute terror plot ahead of the beginning of the tourist season.
The decision to raise boundary walls of school buildings was communicated at the highest level by the Deputy Commissioner Samba Sheetal Nanda to heads of various educational institutions in the presence of senior police officers of Samba district.
SSP Samba Joginder Singh, ASP Fazal Quereshi ,CEO Samba Mangal Dev, Principal GDC Samba, Principal and Headmasters of various Government and private schools were present in the meeting. According of official sources, several heads of the institutions also raised the issue of funds required for raising boundary walls as several schools were deprived of the same due to poor allocation of funds for such purposes.
The heads of the private educational institutions also expressed similar sentiments to address the security concerns. During the meeting Deputy Commissioner also alerted the heads of the educational institutions to carry out regular drill and spread awareness among the school children and staff to report suspicious movement of unidentified persons without wasting any time.