India will complete a fence along its entire border with Bangladesh by next year in an effort to stop illegal immigrants from slipping across, India's home minister said Tuesday. The porous India-Bangladesh border, hundreds of miles (kilometers) long, runs through rivers and forests. Smuggling, skirmishes and unauthorized crossings are common, AP reported. «Half of the border has already been fenced. The task will be completed by 2006,» Home Minister Shivraj Patil said in India's Parliament. Indian authorities say thousands of job-seekers illegally cross into India from Bangladesh every year _ a charge Bangladesh denies. Bangladesh recently launched an operation to clear Indian insurgents from its own territory. «India has acquired floating border observation posts to prevent illegal migration by people using small rivulets and rivers,» India's home minister said on Tuesday. India also is building wire fences along much of its border with Pakistan to stop fighters from infiltrating.
