Kolkata, May 20 (IANS) The West Bengal government’s process of handing over land to the BSF for erecting fencing along unfenced borders with neighbouring Bangladesh began on Wednesday.

Around 27 kilometres of land was officially handed over to the BSF, Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari told media persons at the state secretariat.

He also assured that the process of handing over the entire land required for the purpose would be completed within the next two weeks.

“The official handover of 27 kilometres of land today to the Border Security Force is just the beginning of the process. The entire process is expected to be completed within the next two weeks because of the cooperation from the patriotic people of West Bengal and efficient functioning by the extremely skilled and talented state government officials,” the Chief Minister said.

He also said that since the new government had taken charge, there had been a series of coordination meetings between the Border Security Force and state government officials.

“Such coordination meetings will be conducted regularly henceforth. On Wednesday, 27 kilometres of land was handed over to the Border Security Force. The Union government will provide the money for that land,” the Chief Minister informed.

Speaking on the occasion, the Chief Minister also elaborated on how the previous state government under the leadership of former Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee had avoided handing over land to the Border Security Force to serve the Trinamool Congress’s political agenda.

“India’s total international border with Bangladesh is a little over 4,000 kilometres, out of which a little over 2,000 kilometres are in West Bengal. Again, in West Bengal, around 1,600 kilometres of the border has barbed fencing, while the remaining 600 kilometres are unfenced. The previous government could have easily handed over at least 555 kilometres of land to the Border Security Force had it had the goodwill to do that. That was not done deliberately to fulfil the narrow agenda of appeasement politics,” said Chief Minister Adhikari.

According to him, it had been observed that in anti-social activities such as law and order crimes, love jihad, forced conversions, and crimes against women, there had been major involvement of illegal infiltrators from neighbouring Bangladesh.

He also said that, for the last few years, there had been repeated requests from the Union government to the previous state government for the handover of arrested illegal infiltrators in the state to the Border Security Force.

“However, the previous state government refrained from doing that. That system is in force in the state from Wednesday. Henceforth, illegal infiltrators arrested in the state by the state police will be immediately handed over to the Border Security Force. However, that system will not be applicable for those included in the Citizenship Amendment Act process,” the Chief Minister said.

–IANS

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