Patna, Feb 27 (PTI) Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Friday held a meeting with top Bihar government officials in Purnea district to review internal security in the strategically located Seemanchal region, before winding up his three-day state tour.
Those present at the meeting included Union Minister of State for Home Nityanand Rai and Bihar Deputy Chief Minister Samrat Choudhary, besides the state's Chief Secretary Pratyay Amrit and Director General of Police Vinay Kumar.
Snapshots of the high-level meeting, held at a hotel in Purnea, were shared on X by Choudhary, who holds the Home portfolio in the Nitish Kumar government in Bihar.
"A meeting is scheduled with the honourable Home Minister, who is expected to brief officials of all the departments concerned on effective management of borders and putting a check on activities like smuggling and narcotics," the DGP had told reporters ahead of Shah's visit.
Shah had kicked off his tour on February 25, when he chaired a meeting of the Land Ports Authority of India, a statutory body functioning under the Ministry of Home Affairs, which is responsible for creating, upgrading, maintaining and managing border infrastructure in the country.
On Thursday, he visited Araria, where he dedicated to the nation a couple of border outposts and launched projects worth Rs 175 crore of the Sashastra Seema Bal.
He also asserted that "driving out every infiltrator from the country is the top priority of the Narendra Modi government".
The home minister had noted that states like Bihar, Jharkhand and West Bengal had become vulnerable to "demographic changes" caused by unchecked infiltration.
The former BJP president had also expressed confidence that his party would win the upcoming assembly polls in West Bengal and flush out infiltrators from the state, which, incidentally, has a sizeable minority population.
Shah had also thanked the people of Bihar, where "we fought the assembly polls a few months ago on the issue of infiltration", for giving a resounding mandate to the BJP-led NDA.
He had vowed to make the Seemanchal region "free from infiltrators", and ordered the removal of "all encroachments within 10 kilometres of the border with Nepal".
Besides Nepal, Seemanchal shares borders with West Bengal and is seen as a "gateway" to the strategically important Siliguri Corridor, which is colloquially referred to as the "Chicken's Neck".