August 2, 2015 11:57 AM

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Security, a prime concern after India-Bangladesh enclave exchange

With the long-awaited swapping of enclaves between India and Bangladesh now complete, ensuring security so that these areas do not become a hub of anti- national activities seems to be of prime concern of security agencies. Pradip Bhattacharya, chairman of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Home Affairs, told PTI that security in those enclaves which are now part of India is of topmost priority to check illegal entrants from Bangladesh or JMB modules operating in Bengal. <br/><br/>PTI quoting a senior West Bengal IB official said that the state security agencies along with central agencies including BSF are working in coordination to ensure proper security mechanism to be put in place so that the enclaves, which for long has been devoid of any proper nationality, does not turn into a hot bed of anti-India activities. <br/><br/>Bangladesh and India exchanged 162 enclaves on Friday at the stroke of midnight, ending one of the world's most complex border disputes that had lingered since seven decades. One hundred and eleven Indian enclaves measuring 17,160 acres became Bangladesh territory and similarly, 51 Bangladesh enclaves measuring 7,110 acres became Indian territory. All the Indian enclaves are located in West Bengal's Cooch Behar district. <br/><br/>The exchange of enclaves was made possible under the Land Boundary Agreement signed between the two countries recently.<br/><br/>Although 14,000 people staying in Bangladeshi enclaves in India have opted to stay in India, only near about 979 have opted to return to India out of the estimated 37,000 people living in Indian enclaves in Bangladesh. <br/><br/>Coochbehar District Magistrate P Ulaganathan said that after this process gets over, the issue of safety and security and ensuring that no unruly elements make its way to enclaves is to be looked into. West Bengal IG (law and order) Anuj Sharma said, we have more companies of BSF there and there is extra state police too and we are fully prepared to counter and stop any untoward incident in enclaves.

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