India starts shifting border fence closer to Pakistan

India has started shifting a border fence closer to Pakistan, ostensibly to free the farmlands in the no man’s land between the two countries, but experts said it would position India better to halt militant infiltration. India began setting up a long fence along the disputed border with Pakistan in the mid-90s to stop militant groups and illegal immigrants from sneaking into its territory. Pakistan initially objected to the fence, but India hurriedly set it up at least 2-4 km away from the border line in some places, saying that they were coming under heavy firing from across the border. As a result, vast areas of fertile land in the occupied Jammu and Kashmir and Punjab were left outside the fence, leading to protests from Indian farmers.

“When the fence was being erected, there was lot of firing from the other side, so we put the fence wherever we could,” Ashish Kumar Mitra, chief of the Border Security Force (BSF), said. Authorities have long accused Pakistan, with which it shares a roughly 1,800 km (1,118 miles) long border, of aiding militant groups and helping the smuggling of guns, a charge denied by Islamabad. But Mitra said that peace talks between the neighbours had changed the situation.

“Once we complete moving the fence, farmers should not face any problems in tilling their land,” he said. “We have just started work.” Farmlands across 62 km (38 miles) will be initially freed for cultivation of rice and wheat in occupied Jammu and Kashmir and Punjab, roughly in a year’s time, officials said. “With the bushes out of the way, we will have more access near the border now,” a senior BSF commander said.

“As long as they put it up on Indian soil and not beyond the zero line, they have a right to do it,” said Brahma Chellaney of the Centre for Policy Research, a New Delhi-based think-tank.

“A lot of fertile land will now be available for cultivation, and the farmers will be extremely happy at the development,” Umendra Dutt, head of the Kheti Virasat Mission (Farm inheritance Mission), an agricultural research body, in Punjab said. Farm officials have been trying to raise productivity in the country, where farmland is shrinking because of industrial growth and urbanisation.