MHA panel to suggest ways to tighten security along Indo-Pak border

The government has set up a high-level committee to suggest ways to strengthen security along the border with Pakistan and address the issue of gaps and vulnerability in border-fencing.

The committee, headed by former Union Home Secretary Madhukar Gupta, will suggest how to strengthen border protection and address gaps and vulnerability in border-fencing along the India-Pakistan border, a Home Ministry spokesperson said.

It has been mandated to study all types of gaps in the fencing and all other vulnerabilities along the border and suggest a comprehensive approach to fix them on interim and permanent basis. It will submit its report in three months.

The government’s move comes three months after terrorists belonging to Pakistan-based terror group Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) had breached the Indo-Pak border in Punjab and attacked the Pathankot airbase, killing seven security personnel. 

On July 27 last, three terrorists in Army fatigue had attacked the Dinanagar police station in Punjab’s Gurdaspur district and killed three civilians and four policemen, including an SP. 

In this case too, it is widely suspected that the terrorists had sneaked into India through a riverine stretch of the Indo-Pak border in Punjab.

On March 20 last year, two heavily armed terrorists in Army uniform had stormed a police station on the Jammu-Pathankot highway in Kathua, near the Indo-Pak border, killing five persons.A day later, two terrorists had attacked an Army camp in Samba in J&K.