India’s Union Home Minister Amit Shah, on a visit to West Bengal, toured the Bangladesh border and discussed strengthening security at the “Chicken’s Neck,” or Siliguri corridor, with West Bengal Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari. Shah landed at Bagdogra airport near Siliguri on Friday night and stayed at the guest house of the BSF headquarters at Kadamtala in Siliguri.
On Saturday morning he toured the India-Bangladesh border in the Dabgram-Phulbari assembly area beside the North Bengal secretariat, Uttarkanya, and also visited the Jamuria Bhita and Sannyasi Kanta borders near the barbed-wire fence. He then went to the Jhumagachh border outpost in Siliguri to interact with BSF personnel, laid the foundation for various BSF development projects and inaugurated 14 new border outposts. Shah later held a meeting with administrative officials at the North Bengal state secretariat, Uttarkanya, where, meeting sources said, he discussed the security of the “Chicken’s Neck,” or Siliguri corridor, with Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari.
Shah said the central government was creating a four-pronged security ring to make India’s border impregnable, and that stopping infiltration and ensuring the welfare of the personnel guarding it day and night, and their families, were among the BJP government’s top priorities. Placing special emphasis on the security of the “Chicken’s Neck,” Shah discussed some steps to keep the border secure, saying security along the whole of North Bengal’s border must be further strengthened and the most modern technology used to stop infiltration. The Siliguri corridor, or Chicken’s Neck, is the route connecting India’s mainland with its north-eastern states; geopolitical analysts identify this narrow 20-to-22-kilometre corridor, between Bangladesh and Nepal, as India’s vulnerability. Since Bangladesh’s July uprising, the “Chicken’s Neck” has come up repeatedly amid tension in Dhaka-Delhi relations. After the BJP came to power in West Bengal last May, the state government gave the BSF 1,000 acres of land for border security and fencing.
বাংলায় মূল প্রতিবেদন পড়ুন · Read the original Bengali report