The Jalpaiguri district administration of West Bengal has started the construction of pillars in the unfenced 16 km area of the Bangladesh-India border.
They are continuing this work with the help of Indian Border Guard Force BSF. This information is known from the report of Indian media Telegraph India.
After the partition of India in 1947, Nawtari Devattur, Barashashi, Kajaldighi and Chilahati villages of Jalpaiguri were part of the then map of East Pakistan and Bangladesh, though they were within Indian territory.
Later in 2015 when the India-Bangladesh land border agreement was signed, the villages were officially included in the Indian map after necessary amendments.
Due to legal complications, India could not fence the 16 km border area adjacent to these villages. There were no border pillars here either.
After the ouster of the Sheikh Hasina government in Bangladesh on August 5, the residents of these areas demanded immediate border demarcation and fencing and BSF patrolling.
The villagers told Jalpaiguri District Magistrate that they have no objection to give land for these works. However, the new problem is the houses, health centers, schools and religious buildings in the border areas.
The villagers appealed to the district administration to fence in such a way that these structures fall within the fence. For the past three years, the administration has worked to eliminate this complication.
As a new solution, the fence will have various pocket gates to access the areas of West Bengal that fall outside the fence. People go there and work all day and come back before evening.
Jalpaiguri District Magistrate Shama Parveen said they have spoken to officials of the BSF and other agencies to ensure that houses, religious buildings and other infrastructure do not fall outside the fence.
He said, we are closely monitoring the work of land survey and setting up of boundary pillars. In due course these temporary pillars will be removed and replaced with triangular shaped permanent pillars to mark the border.
