After a halt of a week, the BSF on Sunday resumed excavation work to uncover the secret tunnel underneath the India-Pakistan border in Samba district.
“The work has been resumed — efforts to uncover the tunnel in Samba sector is going on — men and machines are on the job,” a senior BSF officer told PTI.
The excavation work was suspended on July 29 after heavy rains lashed the region and filled the trench dug by the para-military force, and also due to the uncertainty over its opening despite digging at three places.
“Tunnel portions are filled with rain water … Work was stopped,” IGP BSF, SK Mihra had said during his visit on July 30.
“We have been digging the tunnel further … We do not know where the tunnel is going, where is its opening point …. We have not found out so far,” IGP, who inspected the tunnel had said.
“The alignment (of the tunnel) is straight to border fencing … It is going across. So far we have got to the middle of the tunnel …. We do not know beyond,” the IG had said.
Authorities on July 28 had detected the 400-m tunnel into India from Pakistan along Indo-Pak border in Samba district.
The tunnel was detected after an area caved-in in a straight line at two-three places due to rains near border fencing near Chillayari Border Out Post (BoP) of BSF along International Border (IB) in Samba sector.
The tunnel at a depth of 25-ft has been dug out between two sides along IB on India’s Chillayari BoP and Pakistan’s Lumberiyal BoP. It had air supply through a 2-inch pipe. The tunnel is 300-m upto border fencing and 100-m beyond the fencing into this side of the border.
BSF had also sought help from Army, Geological Survey of India and geo-physics and seismology experts for the task.
DG, BSF UK Bansal, who visited and inspected the tunnel at the border line had said that, “Tunneling is one of the standard methods of infiltration used worldwide. We are digging at various places which are actually the alignment of the tunnel. We have taken a decision now to dig in a particular manner which will be more helpful in finding the extent of the alignment.”
–PTI