In early August this year, the Union Home Minister, Amit Shah, visited “Harami Nala” and the Border Observation Posts (BOPs) of the Border Security Force (BSF) in that sector in the Sir Creek area of Kutch, Gujarat, along the India-Pakistan international border. The aptly named Harami Nala (“rogue or treacherous channel” in English) is one of the most inhospitable places along the border. It has also been at the centre of cross-border mischief and exploitation by infiltrators. Media clips showed the Home Minister visiting BOP 1170 to take stock of the situation and he rightly averred that it is now impenetrable as a result of round-the-clock border vigilance.
Better surveillance
According to a BSF release, the Home Minister laid the foundation stone for a mooring place at Koteshwar in Kutch and also inaugurated the newly constructed Chidiyamod-Biarbet Link Road and OP Tower in the Harami Nala area. Mr. Shah tweeted that he had inaugurated a 9.5 metre tall observation post tower equipped with high resolution pan-tilt-zoom cameras, to bolster intelligence-gathering capabilities. This will come up at BOP 1164, further up north from BOP 1170, along the “vertical line” of the International Boundary (IB). The great advantage of the new tower, worth ₹3 crore, and others coming up at BOPs 1165, 1166 and 1169 (apart from three more in the Creek area), is that they will provide live camera feed and continuous surveillance over the open stretch of water and mudflats surrounding Harami Nala.
