NEW DELHI: India plans to cover more than 40 vulnerable unfenced stretches along the Pakistan border by laser walls soon, with the home ministry giving it a top priority to prevent any infiltration, Times of India says in a report quoting a home ministry official.

All the riverine stretches located in Punjab would be covered by the laser wall technology developed by the Indian Border Security Force to eliminate the chances of breach of the border by Pakistan-based terrorist groups, the official said.

The laser wall is a mechanism to detect objects passing the line of sight between the laser source and the detector. A laser beam over a river sets off a loud siren in case of a breach.

As of now, only five or six out of around 40 vulnerable points are covered by laser walls.

The suspected infiltration point of Ujj river in Bamiyal, the report said, used by six Jaish-e-Mohammad terrorists who stormed the Pathankot airbase was not covered by laser.

A camera to keep watch over the 130-metre-wide river bed was found to be not recording the footage.

The BSF has covered this stretch by putting up a laser wall last week before Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to the airbase on Jan 9.

The border force had started putting up the wall on unfenced riverine stretches last year in Jammu sector, which was more prone to terrorist intrusions till three terrorists carried out an attack in Gurdaspur in Punjab in July.

The terrorists are believed to have entered India 5km downstream of Bamiyal near the Tash border outpost — a riverine point not covered by a laser wall as well. Bamiyal has BSF posts on either side of the river with a man on each post keeping a watch on the river round the clock.

Published in Dawn, January 18th, 2016