In a bid to foil any attempt of Pakistan backed terrorists to infiltrate through cross-border tunnels ahead of Republic Day, the Border Security Force (BSF) is carrying out extensive anti-tunnelling drive in the three border districts of Jammu division.

A BSF spokesman said on Monday that keeping in view the intelligence inputs ahead of the Republic Day and security situation to deal with any nefarious attempt of anti-national elements from across the border, troops of BSF Jammu frontier have been on high alert since last week.

The BSF had last year detected two cross-border tunnels originating from border posts of the Pakistan Rangers to push in terrorists, arms, ammunition and narcotics in the Kathua and Samba sectors. The issue was raised by the BSF in subsequent meetings with officers of Rangers.

BSF is carrying out extensive anti-tunnelling drive, special patrolling and depth area domination despite extremely hostile weather conditions. To strengthen the border domination, mobilisation of troops has been done. Regular monitoring of suspicious activities of counterpart Pakistani agencies is being carried out through surveillance equipment.

The spokesman said that joint patrolling and exercise are also being conducted along with Army, CRPF and J&K Police to scuttle any nefarious attempts of anti-national elements.

BSF troops deployed on Jammu International Border have been quite successful and consistent in foiling attempts from across the border by eliminating six Pakistani intruders, seizing huge caches of arms, ammunition, narcotics and detecting tunnels in past one year.

Drone activities by Pakistani agencies have become a real cause of concern in border areas as many drone droppings have been reported.

The border population has been made aware of drone activities carried out by Pakistan. About 144 drone awareness programmes and live demonstrations were organised on dropping of arms, ammunition and narcotics consignments by drones.

BSF is dominating about 192 km of International Border in Jammu with Pakistan and also deployed on Line of Control (LoC) along with Indian Army in Naushera, Rajouri and Poonch sectors.

According to DK Boora, Inspector General BSF Jammu Frontier, BSF is fully prepared and has augmented its resources to rise upto the challenges in 2022.

During the ongoing month, the BSF seized three AK-47 Rifles and four pistols at the border. Four AK-47 Rifles, thirteen pistols, four sticky bombs, twelve grenades (4 of which were China made), thirteen detonators and fifteen Chinese fuse detonators with levers were among the seizures last year.

Vigilant troops of BSF recently neutralised a Pakistani smuggler at the Kathua border and seized about 27 Kgs of narcotics. Apart from this, BSF troops also seized about 11Kgs of narcotics at Akhnoor alongwith Rs. 2,75,000 fake Indian currency.