Over six thousand infiltrators arrested in 5 yrs: Govt

A total of 6867 people have been apprehended by the security forces while trying to infiltrate into India from Bangladesh in the last five years, with 456 such instances taking place till July this year, the government today said.

In written reply over 'number of incidents of foreign infiltration during last five years' in the Rajya Sabha, Defence Minister A K Antony said the government has planned to set up additional Border Out Posts (BOPs) to check infiltration and the highest number of 383 such posts will be commissioned along the India-Bangladesh border.

He also provided details of the infiltration attempts in Jammu and Kashmir and the number of people apprehended across the Indian borders with neighbouring countries.

"For better domination of borders and to check illegal cross-border activities, the government has planned to increase the number of Border Out Posts (BOPs) along Indo-Pakistan, Indo-Bangladesh, Indo-Nepal and lndo-Bhutan border," he said.

As per the plan, the highest number of 383 new BOPs will be constructed along the India-Bangladesh border, followed by its boundary with Pakistan, Nepal and Bhutan, which will get 126, 89 and 63 such posts respectively, he said.

Antony also informed the House that the government has adopted a multi-pronged approach to contain cross-border infiltration.

Besides round-the-clock surveillance and patrolling of the borders and establishment of observation posts, several high tech surveillance equipment have also been installed to detect infiltration attempts.

Measures have also been taken for putting in place fencing along the borders and its floodlighting.

The Defence Minister also informed the House over upgradation of the intelligence set-up and coordination with the state governments and concerned intelligence agencies to check illegal cross border activities.

After Bangladesh, the highest number of infiltration attempts was recorded from Pakistan from where 499 people were apprehended by the Indian security forces since 2008.

From Myanmar the forces apprehended 395 such people in last five years.

As per the report given by Multi Agency Centre (MAC), this year till July 103 terrorists attempted to infiltrate from Pakistan and only 38 were successful.

Last year the number of successful terrorist infiltration stood at 52 against the 247 attempts. One of the terrorist was apprehended by the security forces, Antony said.