New Delhi: Home minister Rajnath Singh on Monday cautioned people that anti-national elements were using social media to foment trouble by posting unverified material and that public should avoid forwarding such content on such platforms.
Speaking at a function of the para-military force, Sashastra Seema Bal (SSB), Mr Singh said that “wrong” content, which has no basis, gets circulated on social media networks like WhatsApp, which the public believes to be true.
The home minister said that public and even para-military personnel should not believe such messages or forwards them without a proper verification since this could a ploy by the anti-national elements to create trouble in society.
Appreciating the SSB’s role, Mr Singh said it was difficult for the security personnel to guard an “open border” since it is tough to detect criminals, subversive elements or those carrying fake currency. The SSB is deployed along the Indo-Nepal and Bhutan borders. The home minister launched the SSB’s intelligence wing on Monday. In addition to a compensation of '1 crore to those getting martyred, Mr Singh said he was planning to do something more also in the days ahead.
The SSB’s intelligence unit would be tasked with gathering information along the Nepal and Bhutan borders, which are considered highly porous, on movement of criminals and Kashmiri militants.
The intelligence wing will have 650 field and staff agents to gather “actionable information”.
Since 2010, as many as 230 former Kashmiri militants, based in Pakistan and Pakistan Occupied Kashmir (PoK), have returned home through the Indo-Nepal border. On the other hand, the Indo-Bhutan border is often used by terror groups active in the Northeast, particularly the National Democratic Front of Bodoland (NDFB), which has even attacked Bhutanese nationals in the past.
Having a separate specialised intelligence unit was important for the SSB since subversive elements are known to take advantage of the “friendly Borders” with Nepal and Bhutan.
