Ongoing pace of work will enable Pakistan to fence 2,400 km of border in six to seven years
ISLAMABAD: Work on fencing all sensitive areas along the Pak-Afghan border is going on in full swing as Pakistan has successfully fenced 150 kilometres of high threat areas along the volatile border within six months. This move will not only help regulate the cross-border movement of people but will also help stop infiltration of terrorists across the porous frontier shared by both the countries, Pakistan Today has reliably learnt.
Well-placed sources told Pakistan Today that the project was very big and still in its early stages, but if fencing work continued with the same pace, it would take the army around six to seven years to completely fence the 2,400 kilometres border with Afghanistan.
They said that the fast pace of ongoing work could be judged from the fact that the six-month target was only to fence 120 kilometres, but Pakistan Army had managed to fence 150 kilometres in the given time period.
They further said that the first phase of fencing work was ongoing right now from Chitral in the northern areas to South Waziristan Agency in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA). Currently, the work was going ahead of schedule, they added.
The sources further said that out of the total number of 443 forts to be constructed along the Pak-Afghan border, around 150 forts have already been built to further enhance security measures in the bordering areas. At the moment, the construction of 293 forts was still pending, they added.
“A total of 14 army units, comprising of 12,000 men, are responsible for work on 14 sites on a daily basis,” they said.
Besides, they said that 400 vehicles were committed round-the-clock for transportation of construction material for the erection of fences, as around one kilometre area was fenced every day.
A senior official in FATA secretariat, speaking on the condition of anonymity, told this scribe that once the fencing work was completed on the Pak-Afghan border, it would drastically decrease the infiltration of militants from the Afghan side, adding that cross-border militant attacks was a constant source of trouble for Pakistan which needed to be stopped.
He said that the positive impact of the fence could already be felt as a drastic decrease in terrorism related incidents have been witnessed in Pakistan, adding that some semblance of peace had been restored in the once troubled tribal areas that border Afghanistan.
The official further said that Pakistan in general and the people of FATA in particular had paid a heavy price in the war against terrorism, so the sole solution to check the tide of rising terrorism incidents was to fence the long and porous border with Afghanistan.
Apart from fencing activities, Pakistan had made it a rule not to allow people without a valid passport and visa to enter the country through key crossing points.
Strict border controls have been introduced at the two main border crossings of Torkham and Chaman to ascertain the identities of people crossing the border on a daily basis.
It is pertinent to mention here that Pakistan’s military took the rare step of flying international media persons in October this year to the border areas with Afghanistan to highlight its efforts to plug the gaps in the porous border to stop incidents of cross-border terrorism.
The fence is a “paradigm change” and an “epoch shift” in border control management, a local army commander deputed at a newly built fort in Angoor Adda said. The fort overlooked the Afghan district of Barmal.
The commander said that security operations have neutralised the threat of militancy in almost all areas of FATA, prompting authorities to launch the construction of a pair of 12-feet high chicken wire fences topped with barbed wire.
The war-weary tribal people welcomed the fencing work initiated by the military and showed hope that it would be able to stop the free movement of miscreants across the border.
A tribal elder Ajab Noor Khan told this scribe that a national border naturally required better surveillance and monitoring facilities, saying that strict monitoring from both sides was needed to ensure complete blockage of infiltration on both sides of the volatile border.
He said that it was heart-wrenching that the fence would divide the tribal population living on both sides of the border, but the problem of militancy and terrorism had spiraled out of control and had badly damaged the very fabric of our tribal society. Hence, the fencing of the border was the only option and should be completed on priority basis.
The tribal elder stressed the need for effective monitoring mechanism on the border so as not only to stop cross-border infiltration, but also to facilitate the regular travellers possessing legal documents in order to make the tribal areas peaceful once again.