The Border Security Force (BSF) yesterday intensified vigil along the Indo-Bangladesh border in West Bengal following a terror attack in Dhaka after the government sounded a high alert in the bordering states.
Among the 20 dead was an Indian teenager.
Tarushi Jain, 19, was caught up in the horrific 11-hour siege at the Holey Artisan Bakery.
Official sources said in New Delhi that the federal home ministry has ordered the BSF and other agencies to keep strict vigil along the international borders.
“Adequate security measures need to be taken in border areas of West Bengal, Assam, Tripura and Meghalaya,” a source said.
Home Minister Rajnath Singh was briefed by senior officials in the ministry and security agencies on the situation in Bangladesh.
“The vigil across the frontier has been intensified. An alert has been sounded and we are doing the needful,” said a BSF officer in Kolkata.
In co-ordination with the police, BSF troopers are also conducting search operations in villages near the Bangladesh border.
Security has also been beefed up in the state’s major installations, including airports and railway stations.
Reports received so far said staff of the Indian High Commission in Dhaka were safe, sources said.
Official sources said the Tripura and Assam governments have reported to the central government in the recent past the activities of a few Bangladesh-based Islamic organisations which “could have also aligned to the ISIS” mainly in terms of getting funds and identifying “raw recruits.”
The government has advised media to exercise self-restraint in reporting on the situation in Bangladesh as “sensationalising” things would not help fight terrorism.
“We have always considered Bangladesh a friendly country, and the administration and the security forces there would do its best to fight terrorism,” the source added.
Meanwhile External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj expressed condolences over the death of the Indian teenager.
“I am extremely pained to share that the terrorists have killed Tarushi, an Indian girl who was taken hostage in the terror attack in Dhaka,” Swaraj posted on Twitter. She said she had spoken to the girl’s grief-stricken father and conveyed her condolences to him.
“The country is with them in this hour of grief,” she tweeted.
Jain had finished her schooling from the American School in Dhaka and was pursuing her studies at the University of California, Berkeley, Swaraj added.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi strongly condemned the attack in a post on Twitter.
“The attack in Dhaka has pained us beyond words. I spoke to (Bangladesh) PM Sheikh Hasina and strongly condemned the despicable attack,” the premier tweeted.
Bangladesh has lately seen an increase in militant Islamist violence.
Home to about 150mn Muslims, Bangladesh has for long been able to ward off Islamic radicalism and Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s government in particular has been widely considered to be committed to secularism.
However, Islamic fundamentalism has of late “plagued” a section of the Bangladeshi society as manifested in attacks on secular writers, Hindus, Buddhists and Christians, say Indian intelligence agencies. 
“Apparently it all moved according to a set pattern,” a source said. Page 25