E-surveillance system on anvil to safeguard borders, says Shah

The government is in the process of installing a special electronic surveillance system along the India-Pakistan border to check intrusion and detect trans-border tunnels, Union home minister Amit Shah said on Monday, as he hailed the role of the Border Security Force as the "first line of defence".

- Ravi Krishnan Khajuria

JAMMU:

The new system, for which two models are being tested, "will detect enemy activities in real time", the home minister said on the second day of his three-day-long visit to Jammu and Kashmir.

"We want to raise a special surveillance system and two models have been prepared. After they get installed on the border, you (BSF men) will detect enemy activities in real time and in turn would be able to respond quickly," Shah said while addressing BSF personnel at Vinay Post in Hiranagar sector of Kathua.

"For this purpose, several experiments have been conducted and some of them were seen here today. We have also installed floodlights on high-watch towers for convenience of our BSF troops. Today, we inaugurated barracks for them," he said.

India has a 3,323-km long border with Pakistan, of which Jammu and Kashmir shares a 744-km Line of Control and around 200 km of international border.