Union Home Minister Amit Shah has directed border administrations to remove unauthorised structures within the 0-15 km belt along international borders and place suspected radicalisation hubs under close watch, sharpening a security push that links infiltration, narcotics, smuggling, demographic shifts and financial crime.
The directions place district magistrates at the centre of a wider enforcement grid involving the Border Security Force, Coast Guard, Income Tax Department, Enforcement Directorate, Customs authorities, police, banks and state-level agencies. The move follows security review meetings in Rajasthan and Gujarat, where border management, maritime security and cross-border crime networks were assessed against a backdrop of heightened concern over drones, illegal migration, forged identity documents, mule accounts and hawala transactions.
Shah asked district magistrates in border districts to form Security Coordination Groups with the BSF, Coast Guard, Income Tax Department, Enforcement Directorate and lead bank managers. These groups are expected to track suspicious financial activity, share field intelligence, coordinate enforcement action and identify emerging risks that may not fall neatly under one agency’s mandate. Responsibility for enforcement of income tax, anti-money laundering and customs provisions is to rest with the district magistrate, superintendent of police and inspector general of the border range.
The order to eliminate unauthorised encroachments within 15 km of the border is being framed as part of a zero-tolerance approach to vulnerabilities near sensitive frontier zones. Security officials have long argued that illegal structures can complicate surveillance, create hiding places, obstruct patrol movement and make it harder to identify people or goods moving across difficult terrain. Shah’s direction seeks to bring land-use enforcement, policing and border security into a single administrative response rather than treating encroachment as a purely local issue.
The focus on radicalisation centres marks another layer in the government’s border strategy. Local administrations have been told to maintain a close watch on spaces and networks that may be used to influence vulnerable groups, enable illegal movement or provide support to extremist and organised crime activity. The instruction does not identify specific institutions, but it gives district authorities a mandate to watch patterns of mobilisation, funding and movement in border areas more closely.
Shah also asked district magistrates to monitor and regularly report demographic changes in border districts. Officials have been told to distinguish between lawful population movement, including reverse migration linked to industrial activity, and patterns that may indicate illegal settlement or organised infiltration. The emphasis reflects the Centre’s concern that demographic shifts in border regions can have security implications when linked to cross-border networks, fake documents or illicit finance.
Local administrations have been asked to prepare standard operating procedures tailored to the challenges of each border district. These are expected to cover identification of already settled illegal infiltrators, drone-related threats, narcotics flows, forged identity documents, suspicious vehicles and funding patterns linked to smuggling or other offences. The approach recognises that the risks in desert, riverine, coastal and marshland border areas differ sharply and require district-specific responses.
Financial surveillance is a major part of the new security framework. Agencies have been asked to keep close watch on hawala transactions, shell companies, mule accounts, abnormal GST collections and suspicious banking activity. The Income Tax Department has been asked to work with the Reserve Bank of India on survey campaigns in border districts, while banks are expected to play a larger role in flagging unusual account behaviour and high-risk transactions.
The BSF remains the primary force guarding land borders with Pakistan and Bangladesh, while the Coast Guard’s inclusion in the district-level groups underscores the maritime dimension of the exercise, particularly in coastal districts where smuggling, illegal landing points and small-vessel movements can overlap with inland criminal networks. The framework also seeks stronger coordination between border forces and civilian authorities, a gap that has often slowed action where police, revenue officials and central agencies hold different parts of the enforcement chain.
The latest directions follow Shah’s call for a stronger multi-layered security grid in border districts, involving security forces, state machinery and local communities. The government has also emphasised the need to curb narcotics smuggling, terror financing and trans-border crimes by integrating intelligence gathering with enforcement action at the district level.
The expansion of the BSF’s jurisdiction in several border states in 2021 remains part of the wider debate over border policing. While the BSF can exercise search, seizure and arrest powers under specified laws within notified limits, routine policing and land administration continue to require close coordination with state authorities. Shah’s latest directions appear designed to reduce that friction by making district magistrates responsible for bringing agencies together under a structured monitoring mechanism.
