LAHORE: Punjab police have managed to avert the proposal of having a third-party monitoring of the checkposts at provincial border with Khyber Pakhtunkhwa being upgraded to stop infiltration of terrorists, criminals, weapons and explosives into the province.

Security at 69 entry points, mainly in Attock, Mianwali and Bhakkar districts, is being beefed up with the help of modern gadgetry for which the provincial government has already released Rs84 million to police.Sources informed Dawn on Tuesday that the provincial government wanted to establish a monitoring system under divisional commissioners so as to check whether police were properly manning the entry-exit points or not. As the police inspector general (IG) and other senior officials did not agree to the idea, so it was dropped for now.

However, sources said, police agreed to link the working of these checkposts with their internal central control and command system established in Lahore. The system will enable the provincial police authorities to keep an eye on their subordinates manning the posts and use the data for taking more steps to stop infiltration of unwanted elements and smuggling of contraband including weapons, into the province.

Sources said the gadgetry for the checkposts would include CCTV cameras, metal detectors and computers for electronically identifying all vehicles and persons crossing into the province.

The checkposts would be manned by local police but their working would be linked to the IGP office through computers.

The police personnel would also frisk those entering Punjab and their vehicles for tracing out weapons, explosive material and other contraband.

These posts would become fully operational as per the plan within a month, sources said.

They said police had also been told to patrol the entry points in the riverine areas. They had been allowed to purchase 15 vehicles for the purpose.