Assam Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal on Tuesday reviewed the law and order situation with top police and Home department officials and said that the Government has decided to raise four new police battalions in the State for deployment along the Indo-Bangladesh International border.
The Chief Minister also issued instructions for raising the four new battalions on Tuesday and said that the new police battalions will have close to 4,000 jawans and they would be deployed along the Indo-Bangladesh border in addition to the Border Security Force (BSF).
The new battalions would be deployed in—Cachar, Karimganj, North Salmara-Mankachar and in Dhubri districts, where there are International borders with Bangladesh—as the second line of defence to guard the Indo-Bangladesh borders, the Chief Minister said. He said that the Commandants of these four to-be-raised battalions will also function as the Superintendent of Border Police in the concerned areas.
Sonowal also reviewed the activities of 120 border outposts along the Indo-Bangladesh border and asked the police and Home department officials to take concrete steps for modernisation of these outposts for effecting guarding of the International border between the two countries and to ensure proper surveillance of the border.
It may be mentioned here that Sonowal had visited the Mankachar and Dhubri sector of the Indo-Bangladesh border in September this year and vowed to seal the porous international border with foolproof security arrangements to stop infiltration from other side of the border.
The Chief Minister had undertaken a two-day visit to the border, travelled around for three hours on the Brahmaputra river to inspect the riverine borders between the two countries and had his boat anchored on several sandbars to interact with the people and get a firsthand account and view of the status of the international border and of the people living near it.
During the review meeting Sonowal also asked the police officials to keep the char (riverine sandbars) areas under strict surveillance and to ensure that there is no fresh land encroachment there.
Sonowal also asked the concerned SPs of the districts to undertake regular visit to the char areas and to take cadets of NCC and other students to the char areas so that they could get a firsthand knowledge about the socio-economic condition of char areas.