BSF empowered to arrest or search suspects within 50 km jurisdiction in border states

Oct. 14: In a recent move to secure more the frontier states, the Union Government has empowered the Border Security Forces (BSF) to conduct searches, arrest suspects and make seizures up to an area of 50 km inside Indian territory from International border along India- Pakistan and India- Bangladesh.

BSF earlier had jurisdiction upto 15 km in Assam, West Bengal and Punjab. However, its jurisdiction has been cut short by 20 km in te 5 NorthEastern states- Manipur, Mizoram, Tripura, Nagaland and Meghalaya, where earlier it had jurisdiction upto 80 km. Likewise, in Gujarat too, the jurisdiction of BSF was curtailed from 80 to 50 km, whereas in Rajasthan, the BSF’s area of jurisdiction will remain the same at 50 km.