1. Home
2. Opinion

CROSS-BORDER TUNNELS ARE BEING DUG BY TERRORISTS TO SNEAK INSIDE INDIA

YB WEB DESK. Dated: 1/15/2021 11:42:02 AM

T K NANDANAN It is a fact that terrorists from Pakistan have been trying to sneak inside the Indian Territory with the help from Pakistani military for long, and the new technique they have adopted now to infiltrate into the Indian Territory is via digging tunnel near the international border. The disheartening report from the Jammu border is that the Indian security forces detected a cross-border tunnel on Wednesday, the third in recent months, in Bobiya area of Samba sector in the Jammu region. The tunnel originated from the Pakistani side of the international border and was detected by a BSF patrol party during its special anti-tunnel drive, which was launched following intel reports about the presence of such tunnels in the Samba and Kathua sectors of Jammu frontier. India’s borders with our neighbors are porous, which are extremely easy to cross as these borders cannot be physically wired due to complex geographical features such as mountains, deserts and other landforms. Hence, border management in India has been characterized by security ambivalence and lack of strategic thinking. India has land borders with Pakistan, Afghanistan (PoK), China, Nepal, Bhutan, Myanmar and Bangladesh. Moreover, the Indo-Pakistan Border is where largescale smuggling of narcotics, infiltration, arms and ammunition takes place. However, recently, cross-border terrorism from Pakistan has failed to deliver the goods as Indian security forces are on high alert and they have been monitoring the border closely. It may be recalled that a cross-border underground tunnel was unearthed in the Samba sector a couple of months ago. The tunnel was 160 meters into the Indian side and estimated to be 40 meters on the Pakistani side of the International Border. Later, it was confirmed that the terrorists had dug the tunnel with the support of Pakistani establishment’s engineering know-how and it was suspected at that time that more such tunnels might have been constructed close to the border. Since security forces have increased its vigil and the strong anti-infiltration gridalong the border, it has become increasingly difficult for militants to infiltrate. Consequently, these infiltrators wereforced to find alternate techniques to cross into India. Cross-border terrorism is like an undeclared war on a country by another country, and since our country was a sitting duck, we suffered too much due to infiltration of militants into our country and caused untold miseries. But India learnt much from this scourge and effective preventive measures were taken against terrorism by increasing its security level at the Indo-Pak border. Thus, India has been able to strictly monitor terrorist activities along the border and it is hoped that India can stop all kinds of militants’ infiltration. Pakistan is a country sans etiquette or ethical sense and so it has no moral scruple at all in perpetrating more and more contemptible activities towards India. Now with the security forces having jacked up surveillance, Pakistani terrorists cannot cross into India to cause mayhem in our land. Surely, Pakistan is frustrated because all their bids to have access to our land have been tightly blocked. So, their failure to access to our land forced them to find a new method of digging tunnel in the border to sneak inside India. It is a laudable task that our security forces have been able to detect their secret tunnels. Strict vigil and surveillance must be continued to foil their secrete attempts to dig tunnel across the border and infiltrate in to India.