India, July 18 -- Union Home Minister Amit Shah visited BSF's 18th Battalion outpost on the outskirts of the north Bengal town of Siliguri on Saturday to review security along India's border with Bangladesh in the region. Shah, who arrived in the state on Friday night, is scheduled to address a Prahari Sammelan, interact with BSF personnel, participate in a plantation drive, and inaugurate and lay the foundation stone for various BSF-related development projects. He is likely to hold a meeting at the base with state chief secretary Manoj Kumar Agarwal, home secretary Sanghamitra Ghosh, BSF DG Praveen Kumar, NIA DG Rakesh Agarwal, state police chief Siddh Nath Gupta, North Bengal IG Sukesh Jain and the joint director of the Intelligence Bureau, sources said.
According to them, the meeting is likely to focus on security provisions at the 'chicken's neck', formally known as the Siliguri Corridor, a vital 17 to 22-kilometre-wide land strip, which serves as the only terrestrial link between mainland India and its eight northeastern states. The corridor is wedged between three international borders -- Nepal to the north, Bangladesh to the south, and Bhutan to the northeast. Recently, the newly-elected Suvendu Adhikari government in the state transferred 120 acres of land to the BSF for border fencing in the region and handed over the management of seven crucial highways in this area, previously managed under the National Highways wing of the state's Public Works Department (PWD), to the Centre. Shah is scheduled to chair a host of meetings on border management and other administrative issues, including the implementation of the new criminal laws in the state and birth and death registration later in the day at Uttarkanya, the North Bengal branch of the state secretariat. He is scheduled to reach Kolkata on Saturday evening and will attend multiple programmes on Sunday, besides chairing a high-level meeting over the law and order situation in the state.
Published by HT Digital Content Services with permission from Millennium Post.