NEW DELHI: India’s Home Minister, Mr Gulzarilal Nanda, told Parliament yesterday [April 15] that in selected sectors on the Assam-East Pakistan border, local population would be cleared from a half-mile to one-mile belt on the border and barbed-wire fencing would be erected.

Elaborating on the scheme, he added that a network of watch-posts would be set up, new battalions would be raised and refugees from Garo Hills would be recruited for these battalions.

The Minister gave details of some of the measures taken by the Government to check what he called “illegal infiltrations from Pakistan into Assam”. Talking of eviction of Muslims from the Indian states, Mr Nanda said the process would continue.

Mr Nanda, who led his country’s delegation to the recent Indo-Pakistan Home Ministers’ conference here, gave an account of talks which will be resumed in Pakistan in the near future. He told the House that there had been agreements on a number of points at the conference. Earlier, an independent member, Mr Prakash Vir Shastri, suggested that an equal number of Muslims should be sent back to Pakistan in exchange for Hindu refugees coming to India.