No information about Rohingya immigrants living near IB in Jammu: BSF

Jammu, Dec 13: Ruling out a possibility of any unidentified person roaming near the border without the knowledge of security agencies, a senior BSF officer on Friday said there was no presence of illegally settled Rohingya immigrants near the International Border in Jammu sector.

Inspector General of BSF, Jammu frontier, D K Boora said Jammu border has always been sensitive and “we keep a close watch on the situation, irrespective of what happens in Bangladesh or elsewhere”.

“We do not have any information about Rohingyas living near the IB (in Jammu). The entire border is under strict surveillance of BSF and other agencies, while border police also play an important role in the hinterland,” the officer told reporters at a press conference here.

He was responding to a question about any presence of Rohingya near the IB or any attempt by any member of the community or illegally settled Bangladeshi immigrants attempting to cross over to Pakistan.

“No, there is no such incident on this border (when any Rohingya or Bangladeshi attempted to cross over to the other side of the IB),” he said.

Asked about the threat posed by the presence of a large number of unidentified labourers, the BSF officer said “you may feel that their verification has not been done but the reality is otherwise".

“The secret services or the police continue to do that work and the people hiring them for work have to report to the police and get their verification done. So, there is no such situation that unidentified people are roaming on the border and no one knows about it,” he said.

He refused to comment on the situation along the Bangladesh border and said, “We have no direct role in its security…as far as the Jammu border is concerned, it has always been sensitive irrespective of what happens in Bangladesh or elsewhere. And keeping that in mind, we keep a close watch and increase over deployment as per the requirement.”

The BSF officer said there was no instance reported anywhere in Jammu when any person posing as insane crossed into this side from Pakistan and returned.

“As far as drug smuggling is concerned, the police and all other security agencies are working hard to counter the menace and have managed to control it,” he said.