BSF slams Meghalaya police on cross-border movement

In a retaliatory attack, the Border Security Force on Wednesday slammed the Meghalaya Government for not sharing information on movement of insurgents and also blamed it for poor progress of the Indo-Bangladesh border fencing.

Referring to the killing of a coal exporter by tribal insurgents near Dawki along the international border last month, the BSF said, The threats given to the exporter, Raja Khongsit, was not taken seriously by the Meghalaya Police and no specific information was shared with the BSF regarding cross-border movement of militants. Even after being aware of the threats to Khongsit by Hynniewtrep National Liberation Council (HNLC) militants, the state police did not take any precautionary measures and failed to protect his life.

Till today, no information was shared with BSF so that it could act accordingly, the BSFs Assam and Meghalaya Frontier said in a statement, a day after Meghalaya police accused it of failing to prevent illegal cross-border movement. A Meghalaya police spokesman had accused the border guards of inefficiency in preventing movement of insurgents to and fro the international border. The BSF also said border fencing in Meghalaya had not progressed as expected because the state police has not been able to quell the threats being given to the contractors and workers of National Building Construction Corporation by local goons and anti-social elements.

Recently, the NBCC has gone public to express their anger and frustration in this regard and have threatened to pack their machinery and stop work, the statement said adding that the barbed fencing could totally stop infiltration if the work was completed as early as possible. The BSF maintained that the force had been keeping vigil on the entire stretch of the international border effectively with the minimum resources available at its command. No infiltration of militants has come to the notice in the recent past, it said, adding that the BSF had apprehended 181 Indian, 156 Bangladeshi and one Nepali person along the border during 2009.