Govt raises height of security camps' boundary walls

To prevent ‘fidayeen’(suicide) attacks by militants in Jammu and Kashmir, government has spent a whopping Rs 800 crore on raising the boundary walls of security camps in the state.

“After some major fidayeen attacks on security forces in recent years, a series of joint as well as separate security reviews were undertaken wherein it was unanimously agreed to raise the height of boundary walls of all the security establishments,” a senior officer, privy to the development, said.

He said though the work has been almost completed, there are some places where the location of camps didn’t allow the construction of boundary walls. “At such places, alternate steps were taken,” he said

Ravideep Singh Sahi, Inspector general of CRPF, said that the exercise to strengthen the fences of forces’ camps has been completed across Kashmir. “Since most of our camps are located in areas where we couldn’t construct the boundary walls, we used multiple layers of concertina wire and other material there as an alternative. The height of walls of our camps is good now,” he said.

A source in the CRPF said during 2017-2018, the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) approved Rs 300 crore for “upgrading and strengthening security around camps that includes construction of outer fences and watchtowers, procuring barbed wire for fencing and installing high-beam and surveillance lights.”

An Army official said during the course of security reviews, the height of boundary walls was fixed up to 10 feet. “But in sensitive categories, the height of walls was kept 12 feet as seen in the Army’s Srinagar-based 15 Corps headquarters,” he said, wishing not to be named.

“The Ministry of Defence had sanctioned Rs 400 crore to the northern command for disbursement to various unit formations in Kashmir on the field. So far close to Rs 380 crore has been spent on repair, reconstruction (or fresh construction) of boundary walls of camps,” he said

The Army official said that funds were also utilised for installing high beam lights to keep a night vigil around the camps.

While the Army has received direct funding from the ministry of defence, the police have conducted the exercise with the direct financial assistance from the MHA under the “police modernisation program.” The CRPF too have received funds from the MHA.