Pathankot terror attack: Why Border Security Force is on the line

The winter could have been harsher. The fog could have been denser. Yet there is uneasiness.

For the Border Security Force (BSF), 2016 is turning out to be a nasty year.

Worry, as a senior officer told me, isn’t as much about the intrusion leading to Pathankot attack. “Because I don’t know where it is happening from, how do I stop one from succeeding tomorrow?” he says.

The arc which emerges at Sangam near Jammu’s Akhnoor, where the Line of Control (LoC) with Pakistan ends and International Border (IB) begins, and culminates in the northern districts of Punjab is the new zone of headache. This arc stares straight at the bulge of Shakargarh in Pakistan’s Punjab province. Unlike the heavily forested terrain north of Sangam, where snow blocks infiltration for several months, this arc remains "open" throughout.

While replying to parliamentarians, on December 1 last year, the ministry of home affairs (MHA) listed "major terrorist attacks in J&K in 2013, 2014 and 2015". Five of the nine attacks were within the arc. Add to it, the July 2015 strike in north Punjab’s Gurdaspur and the present attack in Pathankot.

In each of these instances, the BSF found no signs of breach along the border. Allegations are made about the force’s complicity in the cross border drug trade. Murmurs of protest are heard and the story moves on.

Those inside the force know better.

Sitting inside his office, using strong strokes of the pen, the senior officer draws a line.

"From Punjab to Gujarat, we rely on a single layer/tier of security. There is no depth because we don’t have the manpower. If an intruder succeeds in scaling the fence, digging a tunnel or throwing a consignment beyond the immediate visible patrol, he knows he will have a free run," says the officer.

Only in Jammu does the BSF have a multiple tier deployment. “We did that by diluting manpower from Punjab, Rajasthan,” he says.

For the record, fencing and floodlighting along the IB is "nearly 100 per cent done". "In riverine terrain, fencing has little meaning and lighting up the border when there is fog is hardly effective," says MS Malhi who retired as inspector general in-charge of BSF’s training. He believes it is time the force ramps up manpower and inducts "gadgetry as is required". “These are unhappy times for the commander at the border. His area of vigil, his administrative responsibilities have increased whereas his resources have plummeted,” he adds.

To maintain guard, equipment like thermal imagers or night vision devices are used. Assuming these devices are available, which insiders say is hardly the case, their maintenance worsens the plight. Multiple voices spoke about the time consumed in defect rectification. “My seniors have ordered me to stop writing letters complaining,” says another officer.

The BSF reports to the home ministry, an umbrella organisation which looks at internal security, intelligence, border affairs, immigration, visa clearances, census, population, official languages, human rights, prison reform, administration in Delhi and union territories among other, varied things.

This arrangement, some say, is also to blame.

With 38 years and two months of service, Sanjiv Krishan Sood is among the most senior officers of the BSF. In April last year, he retired as the Additional Director General of the force.

“MHA is unable to look at it beyond a mathematical prism. In the aftermath of Kargil, it was decided to establish one Border Observation Post (BOP) for every 3.5km. That done, nobody really is interested in boosting deployment,” he says. Since Punjab shares with Pakistan a border of about 500km, the "mathematical prism" mandates a deployment of about 8-10 battalions. Persistent protests by the BSF have ensured 13 battalions are now deployed. “But the need is of 17-18 of them,” says Sood.

Even in a battalion of 1,170 personnel, not more than 65 per cent are available. “The irony is that since there is no manpower, our headquarters seek men from battalions on field, thereby jeopardising them further,” Sood explains.

Help is unlikely to come soon.

On February 24, 2015, in Parliament, the MHA junior minister Kiren Rijiju mentioned that the government had sanctioned 186 battalions for the BSF, “As of now, there is no shortage of battalions.”