West Bengal Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari spent most of Sunday (Diwali) at the BSF’s 74th Battalion camp in Hingalganj, North 24 Parganas, along the India-Bangladesh border, following the tradition set by Prime Minister Narendra Modi of celebrating the festival with security forces. He arrived by helicopter, travelled by road to the camp, took a BSF speedboat along the Icchamati (Ichamati) River, and later inaugurated Kali Puja at the Hingalganj police station before meeting police and administrative officials.
Using binoculars from a floating outpost, Adhikari said the Bangladesh side appeared empty of activity. “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,” he told personnel. He assured the forces that “security will be made foolproof,” claimed that the BSF and state police had already driven out several hundred thousand infiltrators, and said a search operation was underway across a 15-km stretch. “We will not let a single infiltrator remain; we will hunt them all down,” he added, noting he had the figures.
Related announcements from the same visit
Adhikari announced that barbed-wire fencing would be installed along a 71-km stretch of the Ichamati River. The state government has already handed over the required land; because the CPWD was unwilling to take up the project, the work has been assigned to the state’s Irrigation and Water Resources Department. He also said the government would introduce a “Seema Mitra” (or Simanta Mitra Samman) award from 2027 to recognise outstanding border security work by BSF, Sashastra Seema Bal (SSB), and West Bengal Police personnel.
During the visit he publicly apologised to BSF personnel for the previous Trinamool Congress government’s treatment of the force, stating that coordination between the state police and BSF had improved under the current DGP. Officials described the Diwali visit as the first of its kind by a West Bengal chief minister.
Broader border context
Earlier this year Adhikari told the Assembly that roughly 10,000 alleged illegal Bangladeshi immigrants had been sent back, with about 1,800 still in holding centres, and that land for fencing had been accelerated (more than 1,000 acres handed over in the first months of his government). His administration has repeatedly emphasised a “detect, delete and deport” approach for those not covered by the Citizenship Amendment Act, while promising faster CAA processing for eligible Hindu refugees, and has prioritised land transfer for fencing along Bengal’s roughly 2,200-km border with Bangladesh.
Opposition reaction
TMC leader Kunal Ghosh responded that the BSF is under the Central government and Ministry of Home Affairs, that fencing decisions rest primarily with the Centre, and that infiltration issues exist in other BJP-ruled states such as Tripura as well. He added that former Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee had always shown respect to BSF personnel.
The visit and announcements form part of the state government’s stated priority of tightening border security and reducing illegal cross-border movement after taking office.