FORMER SPECIAL CHIEF SECRETARY WELCOMES HOME MINISTRY’S COUNTER-TERROR DRIVE, WRITES TO AMIT SHAH WITH SEVEN SUGGESTIONS FROM THE PUNJAB BORDER
Face2News/Chandigarh
A day after Union Home Minister Amit Shah inaugurated the PRAHAAR National Counter-Terrorism Policy and Strategy Executive Conference at the Intelligence Bureau’s headquarters in New Delhi, KBS Sidhu, former Special Chief Secretary, Government of Punjab, welcomed the initiative and urged that the national strategy be matched by border-level measures in Punjab, especially along the shifting riverine border of the Ravi.
KBS Sidhu has written to Amit Shah with seven suggestions, one for each of PRAHAAR’s seven pillars, and has copied his letter to the Governor of Punjab, Gulab Chand Kataria, and the Chief Minister, Bhagwant Mann. He drew on his own service as District Magistrate at Batala, Deputy Commissioner of Amritsar and Additional Chief Secretary (Home), Punjab.
Tracing the year’s progress, KBS Sidhu noted that the Ministry of Home Affairs unveiled PRAHAAR, India’s first comprehensive counter-terrorism policy, on 23 February; reviewed it at the National Security Strategies Conference on 24 August; took up the narcotics vision document on 22 September; and has now called in the officers who must execute it. India, he said, has long since shed its old image as a “soft state”, and Operation Sindoor in May 2025 was the clearest expression of that change.
“Under the overall guidance of the Prime Minister and the decisive leadership of Amit Shah, the Home Ministry has moved counter-terrorism from doctrine to daily practice. Punjab’s border districts can help carry it the last mile,” KBS Sidhu said.
On the river border, KBS Sidhu pointed out that the Ravi shifts its channel with almost every monsoon, so fencing must stand back from the water. He proposed extending the Comprehensive Integrated Border Management System, the sensor-and-radar network already in use on the Brahmaputra, to the riverine stretches of the Ravi and the Sutlej, with fencing designed jointly by the BSF and the State Irrigation Department so that it withstands floods such as those of 2025, which submerged border posts and damaged fencing in Gurdaspur.
On drones and drugs, he called for a layered counter-drone grid, the use of AI to predict drop zones from recovery data, district-level police and magistracy inputs to the national intelligence fusion centre, and dedicated narcotics and terror courts in the border districts with forensic laboratories close at hand. De-addiction, rehabilitation and jobs for border youth, he said, deserve a fair share of the national narcotics targets.
On the border villages, KBS Sidhu sought a permanent bridge at Makaura Pattan in Gurdaspur, where villages beyond the Ravi depend on a seasonal pontoon; fair gate timings and compensation for farmers who cultivate land beyond the fence; hardship incentives for teachers, doctors and revenue staff in border blocks; and a larger Border Wing Home Guards recruited from the border villages. He also proposed that Deputy Commissioners and SDMs be trained in PRAHAAR alongside the police. “PRAHAAR is a strong fist, and in Punjab its wrist is the border village. That is where the next investment must go,” he said.
Internationally, he suggested that every downed drone be documented as evidence for India’s case before global forums, while the Kartarpur corridor remains open as a humane door. “The border is best served when the Centre and the State work as partners,” KBS Sidhu said.
