‘Healing touch’ may hurt in future, says BSF chief

Sharma felt that there were indications that infiltration from across the border in Kashmir would increase in the coming months. ‘‘As such there are always 2,000 to 3,000 militants present in Kashmir,’’ he said adding that the BSF was keeping a strict vigil in the state.

Sharma, who did some plainspeaking on the security scenario, said India’s eastern border — with Bangladesh — would turn into a hotspot in the coming years. The BSF chief, however, clarified that there were no independent reports regarding the presence of Al Qaeda in Bangladesh. ‘‘But ISI activities in Bangladesh are on the rise and this is a major concern,’’ he said.

‘‘They (the Bangladeshi government) have been saying that they would not allow their pious land to be used for activities against any other country but the fact is that militants are getting trained there, they are smuggling in arms and ammunition from there, and we have arrested many of them,’’he added.

Hoping that the BSF would be taken off the counter-insurgency duties soon as per the recommendations of the group of ministers, Sharma complained that at present the force ‘‘was not getting its due and our men are dying unsung and unrecognised.’’ He said that in the six weeks that marked the recent J-K elections, BSF lost 35 men.

BSF’s expansion was on the hold but under the Rs 2,300-crore modernisation plan, Sharma said, the force was acquiring sophisticated arms of the kind used by the army.