Hummingbird News Desk
NEW DELHI, 14 OCT: The Centre has empowered the BSF to conduct searches, arrest suspects and make seizures up to an area of 50 km inside Indian territory from International Border along India-Pakistan and India-Bangladesh borders. BSF earlier had jurisdiction up to 15 km in Punjab, West Bengal and Assam. In Gujarat, its jurisdiction has been brought down from 80 kms to 50 kms.
The move might raise administrative and political issues as the Ministry of Home Affairs has extended the area of jurisdiction of the BSF with a fresh order issued earlier this week allowing its officers to take action to curb illegal activities linked to national security in 10 states and two Union Territories.
In Gujarat, the BSF’s jurisdiction has been curtailed from 80 to 50 km. In Rajasthan, the BSF’s area of jurisdiction will remain the same at 50 km. An officer of the rank corresponding to that of the lowest rank of member of the BSF is now empowered under the CrPC to exercise and discharge the powers and duties without an order from a Magistrate and without a warrant.
The officers are now empowered to arrest any person who has been concerned in any cognizable offence, or against whom a reasonable complaint has been made, or credible information has been received. A BSF officer has now been given the power to conduct a search of a place entered by a person sought to be arrested in its new area of jurisdiction.
“The whole of the area comprised in the states of Manipur, Mizoram, Tripura, Nagaland and Meghalaya and Union Territories of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh and so much of the area comprised within a belt of fifty kilometres in the states of Gujarat, Rajasthan, Punjab, West Bengal and Assam, running along the borders of India,” the order issued in the Gazette notification on October 11 mentions.
The Home Ministry took the decision “in the exercise of the powers conferred by sub-section (1) of section 139 of the Border Security Force Act, 1968 (47 of 1968)” making amendments in the notification of the Central government published in the Gazette of India on July 3, 2014.
As per the latest notification, an officer of the rank corresponding to that of the lowest rank of member of the force is empowered under the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 (2 of 1974), to exercise and discharge the powers and duties under sub-section (1) of section 41, section 47, sub-section (1) of section 51, sections 52, 149, 150, 151 and section 152 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 (2 of 1974).
Tags: #BSF #Pakistan #Bangladesh #BSF_50_KM #Empowering_BSF #Assam, #WestBengal #Punjab
