SSB blueprint to foil refugee entry

OUR CORRESPONDENT
Siliguri, July 13: Darjeeling police and Sashastra Seema Bal (SSB) are gearing up to prevent Bhutanese refugees in Nepal from entering India.
A large chunk of the one-lakh refugees based in seven camps in eastern Nepal have set July 15 as the date for the venture.
“According to our information, the refugees plan to attempt an entry on Sunday,” said Rabinjit Singh Nalwa, the inspector general (IG) of police in north Bengal. “We will provide a second line of defence to the SSB guarding the border at Panitanki.”
“We are going to deploy one company of riot control police to cope with the refugees, whom we will not allow to enter India on their way to Bhutan,” he added.
Nalwa recently held a meeting on this issue with Harishchandra Pandey, the deputy inspector-general of the SSB’s Ranidanga sector.
Pandey indicated that special measures have been taken after the May 28 incident in which several policemen and SSB personnel were injured while thwarting attempts by the refugees to enter India.
“Our men are keeping a vigil on the border round the clock. A strategy to abort future attempts to enter the country has also been chalked out,” he added.