8-Jul-2019: BSF launches Operation Sudarshan

The Border Security Force (BSF) has launched a massive exercise, code named ‘Sudarshan’, to fortify the ‘anti-infiltration grid’ along the Pakistan border in Punjab and Jammu.

The operation was launched on July 1 and will cover the entire 1,000-km length of the India-Pakistan International Border. While Jammu shares about 485-km of the border with Pakistan, about 553-km of the front is in Punjab. It further runs down towards Rajasthan and Gujarat on India’s western flank. The BSF is the primary force guarding this frontier as the ‘first line of defence’.         

Huge assortments of heavy machinery, communication interceptors and mobile bulletproof bunkers have been mobilized as part of the exercise.

Frontier and battalion commanders (from the Inspector General to the Commandant rank), their second-in-command and company (unit) commanders of the about 40 battalions of the BSF are camping in the forward areas of the two states to finish the operation within a fortnight and be at their bases by July 15, by when the monsoon will unleash heavy rains and cut easy access to these locations.

The commanders of the force have been asked to prepare their watchtowers and sentry posts better, replenish arms and ammunition dumps, strengthen artillery positions, check and plug border fence breaches, detect underground and cross-border tunnels and make all operational and logistical arrangements to strengthen the vigil along the sensitive and infiltration-prone border.