Ahead of I-Day celebrations, 3 border police districts on alert

Tribune News Service

Gurdaspur, August 13

The border police districts of Gurdaspur, Batala and Pathankot have been put on an alert ahead of Independence Day celebrations.

The cops are well aware that a drone flight in the next 48 hours from across the border has the potential to wreak their best laid out plans. This is one reason why “heightened special surveillance” is being carried out in villages located near the international border.

The police chiefs of all these districts are sharing inputs on a regular basis. Flag marches are being taken out to instil a sense of confidence among locals. Sources say there is no effective anti-drone technology available with the Punjab Police so far, which is bound to put more pressure on the force.

Gurdaspur SSP Deepak Hilori has intensified vigil in the area falling in Dorangla police station. The last time a drone was sighted in Dorangla was on May 27.

Hilori’s counterpart in Batala, Satinder Singh, has ordered a special survey of villages falling in the ambit of the Dera Baba Nanak police subdivision, which shares a 50-km-long stretch of border.

Bamiyal in Pathankot police district is a “definitive hotspot” keeping in view its past history. SSP Harkamal Preet Singh Khakh said a special drive is being carried out here. IG (Border) Mohnish Chawla is supervising the operations.

Lashkar-e-Taiba, a militant Islamic group operating from Pakistan, had carried out an attack on the Dinanagar police station on July 27, 2015, killing seven persons, including an SP-rank officer Baljit Singh. According to IB reports, three of its members had entered Dinanagar after infiltrating from Bamiyal.

Six months later, on January 2, 2016, four Jaish-e-Mohammad militants entered the Pathankot air base again making their way from Bamiyal.

Railway lines in these police districts have also been secured. The Dinanagar militants had wired 5.6 kg of RDX on the Dinanagar-Jhakholari track before they had entered the police station. What saved the day for the police and villagers living near the tracks was the fact that the terrorists failed to attach a detonator to the explosive rendering it ineffective.

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