India to fence Jammu border

India has decided to fence the 200 km-long international border in Jammu, despite opposition from Pakistan.

Speaking Thursday evening after the three-day bi-annual conference between Pakistan Rangers and the Border Security Force, the Indian delegation head Shantanu Kumar, inspector general of Rajasthan and Gujarat border, said the Pakistani delegation was told that India would not brook interference in the fencing work in the Jammu sector as it is an international boundary and since Jammu and Kashmir are part of India.

R S Mehta, inspector general of the Jammu frontier, said the Pakistani Rangers resorted to unprovoked firing on 376 occasions last year in the Jammu sector and that already 90 such incidents had occurred this year.

However, he said actual work on the fence would start shortly as it was imperative to check trans-border criminal and smuggling activities which had increased after the fencing of the Punjab frontier.

Mehta said pressure on the international border in the Jammu sector could be gauged from the fact that there had been 50 encounters with infiltrators from Pakistan last year. The pressure was more acute in the Pansar, Paharpur, Samba and Kathua area and hence the need for fencing the border, he added.

Shantanu Kumar said the Bikaner and Barmer sectors in Rajasthan had been fenced and work on fencing the 600 km stretch of the Jaisalmer sector was in progress and would be completed in the next two to three years.

The inspector general said Pakistan had increased construction activity close to the border wherever India had built security fences. The Pakistan delegation was told to abide by the international conventions in respect of height and distance of watch towers and observation posts being built by it. At places Pakistan had built watch towers closer to the border than the 150 m prescribed, he said.

He said training camps for terrorists in Pakistan were not discussed though the in narcotics smuggling into India was brought up. The two teams decided to exchange list of smugglers on both sides.

Shantanu Kumar said the problem of people inadvertently crossing the border was also discussed and the list of those caught on either side was exchanged.