BSF Inspector General (Jammu) NS Jamwal also visited the site to supervise the operation
Jammu:
The Border Security Force has detected a tunnel just below the international border fence between India and Pakistan in Jammu, officials said today.
The force has launched a major search operation in the area to search for other hidden structures to aid infiltration, including while analyzing the stained structure that could have been used to aid infiltration of terrorists and the smuggling of narcotics and weapons, they said. .
BSF Director General Rakesh Asthana has ordered his border commanders to ensure that the anti-infiltration network is intact and that there are no breaches on this front, they added.
The tunnel, some 50 meters from the border fence on the Indian side, was located by a BSF patrol on Thursday in the Samba sector of Jammu.
The force subsequently examined the tunnel and found plastic sandbags in its mouth bearing “Pakistani markings,” officials told the Press Trust of India news agency.
A senior official said that the BSF troops became suspicious after noticing the subsidence of the land in some places due to recent incessant rains.
An earthmoving machine was immediately put into service to completely dig up the tunnel, the official said, adding that an inspection of the site revealed that the tunnel was under construction and was about 20 meters long.
The tunnel, according to sources, is approximately 25 feet deep at the opening and has been located near the BSF border post “whale”.
The force has launched a mega search operation along the International Border in this area to detect any other clandestine structures.
BSF (Jammu) inspector general NS Jamwal also visited the site to oversee the operation, they said.
About 8 to 10 plastic sandbags that have “Karachi and Shakargarh” written on them were recovered from the tunnel opening, and the bags have an embossed manufacture and expiration date indicating that they were recently manufactured, authorities said.
The closest Pakistani border post “Gulzar” is about 700 meters from the tunnel, they said.
The force has been conducting a mega “anti-tunneling campaign” in the IB areas of Jammu and elsewhere after five armed infiltrators were recently killed along this front in Punjab.
The entire BSF formation deployed along the 3,300 km international border that runs along Jammu, Punjab, Rajasthan and Gujarat is on additional alert as there are multiple intelligence entrances of terrorists attempting to violate the IB and infiltrate in India, authorities said.
The border force is also considering deploying ground-penetrating radars to detect tunnels along this sensitive front that is prone to infiltration by terrorists from Pakistan and cross-border smuggling of weapons and narcotics.
The BSF has also detected tunnels along the Jammu border front.
The BSF, in June, shot down a hexa-drone with a five and a half kilogram payload, including a sophisticated American-made M4 semi-automatic carbine and seven Chinese grenades along the Jammu IB in the Kathua district.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is posted from a syndicated feed.)
.
