CANDIGARH, India: Feb. 20, Reuter: Security Chiefs on Saturday debated creating a virtual. No man’s land along the border between India’s Punjab. State and Pakistan after at least 30 people died in a wave of bombings and shootings.
A police spokesman in the state capital, Chandigarh, said, “They had revived the idea of trying to staunch the flow of weapons to Sikh militants by imposing a five KM (Three miles) security belt along that sector of the frontier.
India has long alleged that most of the weapons fuelling a bloody campaign by freedom fighters for a Sikh homeland in the North Indian state have been smuggled across the Pakistan border.
In an interim move, the police chiefs ordered work to begin issuing identity cards to some 500,000 local people. Anybody else entering the area would require a permit,
The spokesman said declaration of a security belt, which was rejected as impractical in 1985, could mean the evacuation and relocation of all the villagers living in the 350 KM (220 Mile) Punjab border zone.
Article extracted from this publication >> February 26, 1988
