Kolkata, June 7 (IANS) Amid the continuing border crisis with Bangladesh, the West Bengal government has started the process of handover 356 acres of land to the Border Security Force (BSF) at the earliest so that the border guarding force can immediately start the process of completing the process of installing barbed fencing in those areas where fences have not been yet put up.

Instructions have already been sent from the state secretary of Nabanna to the district magistrates of the districts concerned which have international borders with Bangladesh, a senior official of the state government said.

The districts where the administrative heads have been sent the instruction include Cooch Behar and Malda in North Bengal and Murshidabad, North 24 Parganas, South 24 Parganas and Nadia in South Bengal.

“Last week, there was a meeting between the top officials from the Union Ministry of Home Affairs and their counterparts from the state government. Following that meeting, the state government geared up for starting the process of land handover on a war-footing,” the state government official said.

It has been learned that the Union government had already paid money for acquiring a total of 680 acres in the border areas in several districts of West Bengal for BSF to raise barbed fencing and set up posts at the unfenced border points.

Out of that, 324 acres have already been handed over by the state government to BSF and the process has started for the handover of the remaining 356 acres at the earliest.

The unfenced border points have already been a major headache for the BSF, especially during the last couple of years, considering that illegal infiltration through these unfenced borders has increased manifold during that period.

The headache has aggravated further following inputs from intelligence agencies, both central and state, of attempts by Bangladesh-based fundamentalist groups like Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB), Hizb-ut-Tahrir (HUT), and Ansarullah Bangla Team (ABT), trying to infiltrate their activists in West Bengal through these unfenced borders for setting up sleeper cells in the different bordering districts of the state.

–IANS

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