Security beefed up ahead of Republic Day celebrations

Our Correspondent

Jammu, January 22

With Intelligence inputs about possibility of terrorist attacks ahead of Republic Day (RD), the police are using drones for aerial surveillance to thwart any nefarious designs of Pakistan.

Security forces are on high alert in the border areas of Jammu region, especially along 198-km International Border passing though Kathua, Samba and Jammu district and 224-km Line of Control (LoC) passing along two border district of Rajouri and Poonch to prevent infiltration.

“There are inputs of infiltrations from across the border. The security forces are maintaining highest level of alertness,” Inspector-General of Police, Mukesh Singh said.

Singh said apart from deploying additional police and Central paramilitary personnel to maintain law and order and prevent terror attacks, more emphasis was on using high-tech equipment.

“We have inducted new high-tech equipment this year. They are being used by the police, Army and paramilitary forces. We are taking inputs of agencies very seriously and have launched a search operation”, said the IGP.

The police has conducted liaison meetings with the Border Security Forces (BSF) to intensified their vigil on the International Borders (IB). Deployment of additional forces has been made in sensitive areas of Nowshera, Akhnoor, Choki choura and in-route to Jammu to defuse any attempts of militants.

However, after the killing of Hizbul Mujahideen Commander, Haroon Wani, in an encounter in Doda district last week, the J&K Police are all set to keep Chenab region a militancy free zone.

“Out of the eight active militants in Doda-Kishtwar, now only four are left. We have launched several operations in the area pro-actively to look for the militants who are active in the area and hopefully we will succeed in nabbing them.” Mukesh Singh said.

Last year, Director-General of Police Dilbag Singh had exhorted the security forces to go pro-active and make the Chenab region militancy-free once again.