Coastal security exercise conducted in West Bengal, Odisha

Kolkata: To check preparedness of Coast Guard against any sea-borne terror strike similar to the 2008 Mumbai attacks, a two-day combined coastal security exercise 'SagarKavach' was held along West Bengal and Odisha coast.

Coast Guard officials said the main objective of this exercise, which ended today, was to assess the present security arrangement, to re-validate the standard operating procedures and to strengthen the security mechanism to face the threats from anti-national elements.

Inspector General K R Nautiyal, Commander Coast Guard Region (North East), emphasised on continued and seamless co-ordination between stakeholders during the exercise.

Apart from Coast Guard, other agencies such as the Navy, BSF, CISF, coastal police, state administrations, police and fisheries departments participated in the exercise.

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The participating units were divided into two groups, one group (Red Force) simulating an attack and the other one (Blue Force) defending the coasts.

A host of coastal security assets comprising four naval ships, one naval aircraft, 13 Coast Guard ships and hovercrafts, two aircraft, boats of the coastal police, customs, BSF and CISF were deployed to carry out comprehensive surveillance of the coastal waters of West Bengal and Odisha, officials said.