GUWAHATI, Dec 4 � Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh should visit the international border areas with Bangladesh to assess the situation on the ground, demanded the president of the Assam unit of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Sarbananda Sonowal.
Talking to The Assam Tribune, Sonowal, who extensively toured the Indo-Bangla border areas in the Barak valley in the last couple of days, said that the Prime Minister cannot be expected to know the ground realities by sitting in Delhi and he should visit the border areas to know the ground reality.
The state BJP president said that the border is still vulnerable and porous and there is urgent need for taking effective steps for improving the quality of the border fencing. He said that in some places, the fencing was broken and no step has been taken to repair the same. The quality of the fencing left much to be desired and it would not be adequate to prevent entry of illegal migrants and elements of the fundamentalist forces, he added.
Sonowal alleged that the quality of the fencing proved the lack of sincerity on the part of the Government of India to check infiltration of foreigners and elements of fundamentalist forces and in some places, the fencing was constructed without proper survey of the international border. No serious effort has yet been made to increase vigil along the riverine international border and till date, no flood light has been installed to improve vigil at night, he said.
