According to sources, there are over 1,500 posts vacant in different branches of the Border Police.
NEW DELHI: The Assam Border Police Organisation is finding it difficult to function as it is facing a severe shortage of both manpower and funds. This comes at a time when Home Minister Amit Shah has reiterated that the ruling BJP government at the Centre aims to detect and send each and every infiltrator out of the country.
The Border Police under the PIP (Prevention of Infiltration of Pakistani) Scheme was established in 1962, under the Special Branch of Assam Police. It is the only organisation which is tasked with detecting and deporting illegal immigrants or foreigners. Besides this, its other functions include monitoring developments along the inter-state border and prevention and detection of crimes in riverine areas.
Official data of the Border Police reveals that out of 160 watch-posts (WPs), around 40 watch-posts are non-functional. Watch-posts are located in infiltration-prone areas of 20 districts of Assam to conduct survey in these areas, detect illegal infiltrators and initiate legal action against them.
In the tripartite meeting held at New Delhi between the Union government, Government of Assam and the All Assam Students’ Union (AASU) in 1999, it was decided to establish a second Line of Defence BOPs (Back-up-Force) behind the Border Security Force (BSF) BOPs to keep vigil and to trace infiltrators who might sneak past the BSF BOPs. However, out of 28 BOPs and three technical headquarters that were proposed, funds were sanctioned for only 11 BOPs.
According to a Border Police official, the 11 BOPs and two technical headquarters are functional with the hardly available resources of the Border Police. The officials also said that work for the remaining BOPs and technical headquarters will be completed as soon as infrastructural and other logistic support are made available.
This reflects the acute shortage of manpower that the Border Police is facing. According to sources, there are over 1,500 posts vacant in different branches of the Border Police. The shortage of manpower has also forestalled their assigned task of identifying and detecting foreigners. In the last one year, the Assam border police detected only 75 illegal infiltrators whereas government data states that the numbers of foreigners in the state are in lakhs. Earlier, answering a question by Ramendra Narayan Kalita, Asom Gana Parishad legislator, Chandra Mohan Patowary, Assam Parliamentary Affairs Minister, said that the Foreigners’ Tribunal had identified an estimated 117,164 foreigners in Assam till 3 March this year and around 29,855 foreigners were expelled since 1985 till 30 June of this year.