BSF launches massive exercise to fortify anti-infiltration grid along Pak border in Punjab, Jammu

BSF has launched a mega exercise to fortify the ‘anti-infiltration grid’ along the Pakistan border in Punjab and Jammu. It has mobilised its entire senior field brass, thousands of troops and machinery deployed in these forward areas.

Top sources in the security establishment told PTI that a huge assortment of heavy machinery, communication interceptors and mobile bulletproof bunkers have been mobilised, backed by thousands of BSF personnel as part of the exercise.

Frontier and battalion commanders (from the Inspector General to the Commandant rank), their second-in-command and company (unit) commanders of the about 40 battalions of the BSF are camping in the forward areas of the two states to finish the operation within a fortnight and be at their bases by July 15, they said.

The operation, code named ‘Sudarshan’, was launched on July 1 and will cover the entire over 1,000-kms length of the India-Pakistan International Border.

The commanders of the force have been asked to prepare their watch towers and sentry posts better, replenish arms and ammunition dumps, strengthen artillery positions, check and plug border fence breaches, detect underground and cross-border tunnels and make all operational and logistical arrangements to strengthen the vigil along the sensitive and infiltration-prone border.

As part of the operation, big earthen mounds on the International Border will be flattened, new bunkers and ‘ditch-cum-bandh’ (trenches) are being dug and BSF posts are being better armoured against sniper firing incidents that have claimed lives of many troops in the past, they said.