July 2, 2007 | Editorial
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1859975/posts
Like the United States, India has an immigration problem. India is a developing country with a booming economy. Its neighbor, Bangladesh, is an impoverished mess with 150 million people crammed onto what is mainly a flood plain about the size of upper New England plus Massachusetts. India surrounds Bangladesh on three sides; on the fourth is the Indian Ocean, which frequently stirs up catastrophic typhoons.
India’s per-capita income is about $730 a year, not much by American standards but twice that of Bangladesh, where nearly 60 million of its residents earn less than $1 a day. The result was a growing wave of people crossing from Bangladesh into India, including job-seekers and Islamic terrorists.
In the words of Ajai Sahni, head of the New Delhi-based Institute for Conflict Management, “India has enough nightmares of its own without adding to them.”
Something urgently needed to be done, and India went ahead and did it.
Without fuss, without bother, without much debate, India began building a fence all the way around its 2,050-mile border with Bangladesh. The fence consists of two rows of 10-foot-high barbed wire stretched between posts studded with spikes. Coils of barbed wire fill the space between the two rows. Work began in 2000, and about 1,550 miles of the fence has been completed.
Contrast that with the outcry and anguish in the United States over a plan to build a 700-mile fence across part of its border with Mexico. Contrast that with the inability of Congress to do anything about illegal immigration.
Last week’s failure of the immigration bill in the U.S. Senate means nothing is likely to be done until at least 2009. By then, work on India’s fence should just about be done.
http://www.tribuneindia.com/2005/20050112/j&k.htm#1
Infiltration down due to fencing
Tribune News Service
Srinagar, Kashmir (INDIA)
January 11, 2005
With about 14 months of ceasefire along the border in Jammu and Kashmir facilitating uninterrupted exercise of border fencing, the infiltration of militants has been curtailed to a great extent during the past six months. Nearly 45 infiltration attempts have been made along the LoC since July last year. The task of fencing the porous LoC along the rugged mountains to check the infiltration of militants was completed in a year by September last.
“The fence has added a new dimension in the battle against infiltration and exfiltration of militants, according to Army officials here. With the Army keeping an ever-constant vigil along the fence, crossing the border has become very tough for the militants. Sources here claimed that the security forces have seen groups of militants move up to the fence and then turn back realising that any attempt at crossing will be suicidal.
The fencing that prevented infiltration is also regarded as the main reason behind a decline in the violence in the state during the past year. However, “ the infiltration is there. It has not stopped”, said a senior police officer here, adding that the infiltration attempts by the militants from across the border were calibrated.
With the decline in the violence the past year has witnessed over 2500 incidents and over 700 civilian killings, which has been rated as the lowest level of violence since the eruption of militancy 15 years ago.
Not only the border fencing, various other measures like laying of landmines and possession of modern equipment and weaponry, have helped the Army to check the infiltration and exfiltration along the border. The sources said except for some populated areas, the entire border is laden with landmines. It has, however, been hazardous to many civilians living in the border areas injuring them or rendering them maimed over the years.
The Army is also equipped with world-class night vision devices, detection equipment, surveillance, alarm and communication system. The security forces have sought installation of more sensors made in Israel to effectively check any movement along the border.
The fencing was first attempted in 1994 on the pattern of Punjab and Rajasthan but was suspended due to cross border firing. Later it was restarted along the 198 km-long International Border in the Jammu region in 2001. The fencing along 778 km of the LoC in Kashmir was taken up in 2003 and completed after one year in September last year, according to the sources here.
In order to ensure deterring and detecting the infiltrators or exfiltrators, two systems have been conceived. These are the anti-infiltration obstacle system, which is an integration of an electrified fence incorporated with an “anti-intrusion alarm system”. Moreover, there is “hi-tech surveillance and communication clubbed with the deployment of troops so as to cover the fence with little or no gaps”, said the sources.
