October 23, 2017: Barbed wire fencing works along the Indo-Bangla border in Tripura and other States have raised several issues. The Supreme Court while hearing a matter relating to the fencing of the India-Bangladesh border on July 31 constituted a three member team to oversee the fencing work along the India-Bangladesh border and other issues and asked the Committee to submit its report to the apex court about the intricacy of the border issues, sources said.
A three member team led by Retired IAS officer AK Mangotra today landed at Sabroom today morning and held meeting with officials of Sub-Division administration, PWD and implementing EPIL agency. The team also visited Belonia and Sonamura. Local administration in Belonia raised the Muhuri Char issue and held detailed discussion. In Sonamura, local people interacted with the visiting team and detailed about villagers’ plight in case of erecting fencing 150 yards inside Indian territory. Villagers demanded fencing at zero point.
Apart from Mangotra, the visiting team consists of retired BSF DG A K Pathak and former Professor of Assam University Abdul Manan. The three-member Supervisory Committee visited the border areas of Meghalaya, Mizoram, Assam and is currently visiting Tripura.
A senior official of Tripura’s home department said, “The committee members accompanied by senior BSF (Border Security Force) officials on Monday visited Tripura’s bordering areas of Sabroom, Belonia (southern Tripura) and Sonamura (in western Tripura) and talked to the district administration and other officials about the fencing work and other issues.”
BSF’s Tripura frontier Inspector General S.R. Ojha, who accompanied the visiting committee members on Monday, said that of the 856-km India-Bangladesh border with Tripura, around 21 km remained unfenced for numerous reasons. The Committee will soon submit a report to the Apex Court.
