With opposition-ruled governments questioning the extension of the BSF jurisdiction to 50 km inside the international border, the Director General of the paramilitary force, Pankaj Kumar Singh, Tuesday said the probable reason for the Centre’s decision was that “the demographic balance has been upset in border states like West Bengal and Assam over a period of time”. He said a survey done by the BSF (Border Security Force) pointed to “a definite democratic change”.
At the annual press conference of the BSF, Singh said: “Over a period of time, you must have observed that whether it is Assam or West Bengal, the demographic balance has been upset to a great degree… It has changed for whatever reasons. It has changed and there have been agitations in certain states and there have been many revolts because of these reasons… Even the voter pattern has changed in certain districts neighbouring borders. So, the government probably thought that, in its vision, the BSF jurisdiction was changed from 15 km to 50 km, and maybe now it can help and support and supplement the state police in catching the infiltrators.”
He added: “The force has done a survey in some border villages that found that there is a definite demographic change.”
The BSF DG reiterated that the force was not trying to act as a parallel police, and that the powers to investigate and file chargesheets would remain with the state police. “There is no problem at all, we work in tandem with the local police. The notification, issued by the Central government, was essentially in the context of the Passports Act and the Passport (Entry into India) Act, with the earlier dealing with people going out of the country and the latter with people entering the country. The government standardised a 50-km region from the border in all border states manned by the BSF so that the forces could easily move from one theatre to the other,” Singh said.
#Demography #DemographicChange #BorderAreas #BSF #BorderSecurity #Assam #Bengal
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