After setting up three new Army bases in an arc covering West Bengal, Bihar and Assam, with the strategic goal to shield the sensitive ‘Chicken’s Neck’ or Siliguri Corridor, Indian defence authorities are exploring the possibilities of establishing a fourth station in Mizoram, government sources revealed to Northeast News.
As part of the Army’s expansive plans to take adequate defensive measures surrounding the ‘Chicken’s Neck’, Eastern Command General Officer Commanding (GOC) Lieutenant General R C Tiwari will pay a day-long visit to Thuampui near Aizawl in Mizoram on December 19.
Lt Gen Tiwari’s visit is said to be to discuss and identify potential areas in Mizoram where an Army battalion, drawn from a brigade of the Dimapur-based 3rd Corps, could be based as a first line of defence from any aggressive steps by Bangladeshi state and non-state actors.
To this end, Lt Gen Tiwari, who will be accompanied by 3rd Corps GOC Lt Gen Abhijit S Pendharkar and 17th Mountain Strike Corps GOC Lt Gen Yash Ahlawat to Thuampui, will be briefed by senior Assam Rifles and BSF officers, in the presence of other senior Army officers, before he visits two outposts – Parva and Silsuri – on the India-Bangladesh border.
The Eastern Command Commander will confer with the two GOCs and will be part of a presentation that Army and Assam Rifles officers will make following his return to Agartala.
While Silsuri is a large village located in West Phaileng block of Mamit district, the BSF’s Parva border outpost (BOP) is in Lawngtlai district of southern Mizoram. Significantly, Parva is near the India-Myanmar and India-Bangladesh border.
Besides the Army’s efforts to protect sensitive areas in close proximity to the defence installations in Bangladesh, the BSF also has long-term plans to build several in-land defensive structures, including bunkers, ‘ring bundhs’ or temporary or permanent artificial embankments, blast-proof shelters and underground armouries in three battalion command areas in Silchar under the Silchar and Mizoram frontier.
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These “critical infrastructures” have been “prioritised based on assessed operational sensitivity, threat perception and vulnerability”, Ministry of Home Affairs sources said.
These constructions will take place over the next five years, the sources said, adding that 45 bunkers, ring embankments, blast-proof shelters and underground armouries will be built in each of the three battalion areas in the Cachar and Mizoram frontier.
There are 85 BOPs along the India-Bangladesh border in the Mizoram sector. The aim is to turn these BOPs into “composite” future-ready operational hubs.
Likewise, 40 such constructions have already taken place in Mizoram’s Lunglei and Lawngtlai districts.
Besides these, work on 19 such structures have been sanctioned, though it is not known when they will likely be completed. It is proposed that as many as 26 BOPs will have the four critical structures in the next five years.
