Committee to submit report to SC on border fencing

Agartala, Oct 23 (IANS) A committee set up by the Supreme Court to oversee the fencing work along the India-Bangladesh border and other issues would soon submit its report to the apex court about the intricacy of the border issues, an official said here on Monday.

The three-member Supervisory Committee headed by retired IAS officer A.K. Mangotra visited the border areas of Meghalaya, Mizoram, Assam and is currently visiting Tripura.

"The Supervisory Committee would soon submit its report to the Supreme Court about the progress of the works of border fencing and related problems," a senior official of Tripura's home department said.

He said: "The committee members accompanied by senior BSF (Border Security Force) officials on Monday visited Tripura's bordering areas of Sabroom, Belonia (southern Tripura) and Sonamura (in western Tripura) and talked to the district administration and other officials about the fencing work and other issues."

South Tripura District Magistrate and Collector C.K. Jamatia told IANS over phone from Belonia that they have informed the committee about the 1.73 km undemarcated border popularly known as "Muhurichar" along the bordering sub-divisional town of Belonia.

As part of the implementation of the Land Boundary Agreement of 1974 and its 2011 Protocol, India gave away to Bangladesh 110 of the 111 enclaves and received 51 enclaves on July 31 midnight of 2015, but the talks over "Muhurichar" had remained inconclusive.

BSF's Tripura frontier Inspector General S.R. Ojha, who accompanied the visiting committee members on Monday, said that of the 856-km India-Bangladesh border with Tripura, around 21 km remained unfenced for numerous reasons and work is on to fence it.

The other members of the Supervisory Committee are former Director General of BSF D.K. Pathak and former professor of Gauhati University Abdul Mannan.

The Supreme Court while hearing a matter relating to the fencing of the India-Bangladesh border on July 31 constituted the committee headed by former Home Secretary G.K. Pillai and directed the committee to submit its report in three months. Subsequently, Pillai was replaced by A.K. Mangotra.

Five Indian states - West Bengal (2,216 km), Tripura (856 km), Meghalaya (443 km), Mizoram (318 km) and Assam (263 km) share a 4,096-km border with Bangladesh.

The mountainous terrain, dense forests and other hindrances make the unfenced borders porous and vulnerable, enabling illegal immigrants and intruders to cross over without any hurdle.