After detecting a 70-metre long ‘rat hole’ cross border tunnel possibly used by the heavily armed terrorists to sneak inside the Indian territory in Ramgarh sector of Samba district, the BSF authorities are suspecting presence of few more tunnels across Jammu frontier.
The BSF authorities have already started carrying out ‘inch by inch’ search on ground zero but it is highly unlikely to detect deep tunnels in the absence of expertise and technological aid at their command.
In the past 194 km long International border between Pahadpur and Akhnoor has been frequently exploited by the Pak rangers to dig tunnels in order to dodge alert BSF jawans.
In July 2012 when BSF had stumbled upon a cross border tunnel in Cheechwal area of RS Pura it had requested Geological Survey of India to deploy its men and machinery to carry out extensive search operations to rule out the presence of more tunnels.
But so far no such fresh request has been made by the BSF authorities to engage GSI authorities.
As intelligence agencies are fearing surge in the infiltration bids in the coming days the challenges would mount for the BSF jawans especially during foggy weather conditions.The visibility is poor during foggy weather conditions and keeping a hawk's eye on the suspicious movement of infiltrators becomes a challenging task. To prevent incidents of sniper fire the naka points are covered by the camouflaged nets to hide the presence of sentry present inside the observation posts.
BSF authorities suspect infiltrators may take advantage of the elephantine grass and foggy weather while attempting to infiltrate inside the Indian territory.
In view of these challenges the BSF is learnt to have activated its Winter Border Management strategy to plug the gaps and prevent fresh infiltration bids.
At many places the frequency of foot patrol has been increased and area domination drill has been reoriented to prevent any infiltration bid by heavily armed terrorists.
The BSF authorities are laying special emphasis on guarding the small rivulets and riverine areas along the 194 km long International border as these vast stretches have been exploited by the infiltrators to sneak inside the Indian territory.
At some of the difficult locations even motorised cameras are mounted on pulleys to track down the movement of infiltrators.
Night vision devices have also been fitted across vulnerable patches to easily pick any suspicious movement of infiltrators close to the barbed wire fence.
According to security experts, "the Pak rangers are aiming to escalate the situation and prevent BSF from carrying out digging work across different sectors to expose their nefarious designs".
To prevent BSF from carrying out fresh digging work Pak rangers even resorted to sniper fire on BSF jawans and even movement of local villagers was suspended to the forward villages in anticipation of the fresh strikes in the wake of mounting tension in the aftermath of Nagrota terror strike.