NEW DELHI, June 2 ? In a significant step aimed at checking movement of militants across the Indo-Bhutan border, Government has designated the Special Services Bureau to man the frontier, reports PTI. The step has been taken in the wake of recent reports that militants of North-East and extremists of North Bengal were using this route to infiltrate and exfiltrate, official sources said here today.
The Home Ministry is also examining a proposal to raise additional battalions of the force, created under Cabinet Secretariat in 1963 and brought under Home Ministry last year, to meet the increasing need for guarding such borders, they said. The SSB has been designated to guard the 661-km border covering areas of Sikkim, West Bengal, Assam and Arunachal Pradesh to ensure that ?anti-national elements are not able to use Bhutanese territory as a base or sanctuary?, they said.
Recently there have been reports that the anti-national elements of North-East and North Bengal have established training camps and are mis-utilising the territory of Bhutan, they said. ?Cadres of these organisations have found safe havens in the dense hilly forest of Bhutan for their base camps and for training and logistics support,? the sources said. The role of SSB till now has remained limited to civic actions and confidence-building measures. At present it guards the Indo-Nepal border.
The spokesman said it has come to the notice of the authorities that ULFA, NDFB and KLO militants were using the Indo-Bhutan border to carry out their subversive activities. Observing that SSB has been doing ?excellent work? in guarding the Indo-Nepal border and checking activities inimical to India, the spokesman said within a span of less than one year, the force has recovered contraband, including fake currency and narcotics worth Rs five crore and arrested 145 smugglers and four suspected agents of Pakistan?s ISI.