India may seal borders with Pakistan, Bangladesh

India said on Saturday that it mulls sealing the international borders with neighboring Pakistan and Bangladesh soon as an effort to curb terrorism and the entry of refugees into this country. 

“India is planning to seal the international boundaries with Pakistan and Bangladesh as soon as possible. This could be India’s major step against terrorism and the problem of refugees,” Indian Home Minister Rajnath Singh said in the central state of Madhya Pradesh.

“The border with Pakistan will be sealed by 2018. The decision has been taken in the wake of an increase in infiltration attempts,” he added.

The minister said the government would apply technological solutions for sealing the border in difficult terrains and the sealing project would be periodically monitored by top bureaucrats and the Border Security Force, which guards the international borders.

The international border between India and Pakistan runs from the Line of Control (LoC), which separates the Indian-controlled Kashmir from Pakistan-controlled Kashmir in the north, to Wagah, which partitioned India’s Punjab state and the Punjab Province of Pakistan in the east.

The Zero Point separates the western Indian states of Gujarat and Rajasthan to Sindh province of Pakistan in the south.

On the other hand, India and Bangladesh share a 4,096-km-long international border, the fifth-longest land border in the world, including 262 kms in the northeastern Indian state of Assam, 856 kms in Tripura, 180 kms in Mizoram, 443 kms in Meghalaya and 2,217 km in West Bengal.