Night curfew along border

Night curfew along border
SANTANU GHOSH
Silchar, June 14: The Karimganj district administration has clamped a nine-hour curfew beginning 8pm along its 92-km stretch of Indo-Bangladesh border.

The order was issued by district magistrate B.N. Sarma yesterday afternoon to curb transborder movements of militants and smuggling of contrabands.

A government release issued last night stated that an embargo on movement of people with or without goods within a 1-km radius of the international border in Karimganj had also been declared, invoking Section 144 of the CrPC.

The stretch is a safe haven for militants from the Northeast who go to Bangladesh for advanced training in arms and return thereafter.

Official sources in the district headquarters town of Karimganj today said the measures had been taken on the basis of intelligence reports by central agencies and the state’s special branch.
Sources in the BSF said on an average, 15 infiltrators from Bangladesh are caught every month.
The curfew order also banned night plying of boats on the Indian side of the riverine stretch of the Kushiara, following intelligence inputs that infiltrators often use the waterways.

The order aims at bolstering the existing preventive measures adopted by the BSF and the customs to foil smuggling.

Areas under the jurisdiction of the Karimganj municipality will, however, remain out of the purview of the curfew order.

Sources said a restriction has been imposed on the movements of vehicles within a 1-km radius of border settlements such as Lakhibazar, Tillabazar, Churaibari, Kathaltali, Chandkhira and Adamtilla.