Suvendu Adhikari toured frontline positions along the India-Bangladesh border at Hingalganj on Sunday, warning that cross-border infiltrators are actively watching for patrol gaps to enter West Bengal.
Had he waited for formal briefings, the ground reality might have blurred. Instead, Adhikari touched down at a makeshift helipad on the Hingalganj College grounds on Sunday afternoon, drove straight to the 74th Battalion camp of the Border Security Force, and boarded an armed speedboat to inspect the waters of the Icchamati River. He later inaugurated Kali Puja festivities at the local Hingalganj police station before convening a closed-door operational review with local police and administrative brass.
"Security will be made foolproof," Adhikari said after surveying the riverine boundary through binoculars from an offshore post. "I personally checked the final floating outpost — the one from which I used binoculars to scan the area — and there is nothing on the Bangladesh side. They are lying in wait, watching for the BSF to be momentarily out of sight so they can slip across."
Pressure along the riverfront remains intense. Adhikari insisted that joint efforts between border guards and state police have already pushed back massive numbers across the boundary line. He revealed that security formations have now deployed across a 15-kilometre stretch of the frontier to track illegal crossings.
"We will not let a single infiltrator remain; we will hunt them all down," Adhikari said. "A search operation is in progress across a 15-kilometer stretch along the border. We will identify the infiltrators — I have the exact figures."
But the political blowback was instantaneous. Trinamool Congress leader Kunal Ghosh dismissed the rhetoric, reminding border authorities that operational command over the BSF rests entirely with the Union Ministry of Home Affairs.
The Centre holds the purse strings. Barbed-wire fencing, Ghosh argued, remains a sovereign central policy mandate that the Union government has failed to execute comprehensively since taking power in 2014.
"How are illegal infiltrations and the entry of Rohingyas taking place in Tripura, given that there is a BJP government there?" Ghosh asked. "So, whose failure is this? Is it fair to blame only West Bengal? Infiltrators are being apprehended in Tripura as well."
Ghosh defended Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee's posture toward central forces, emphasizing that the state leadership continues to back the rank-and-file jawans stationed along remote river outposts. Joint operations between BSF personnel and district police units will continue as search teams comb the 15-kilometre Hingalganj corridor through the week.