Lockdown aided more drug seizures on India-Bangladesh border
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Quantity of marijuana and yaba tablets seized by BSF in 2020 was nearly thrice the amount in 2019
The COVID-19 lockdown apparently didn’t make a lot of a distinction for cattle smugglers and drug traffickers alongside the India-Bangladesh border. But it helped the BSF Guwahati Frontier catch more of them and the contraband gadgets they have been ferrying in 2020 than in 2019. The frontier guards 509 km of the border — 91.726 km of it by means of rivers and water our bodies — straddling Cooch Behar district of West Bengal and Dhubri and South Salmara districts of Assam.
From January 1 to December 31, the personnel of 11 battalions beneath the Guwahati Frontier seized cattle heads, phensedyl, yaba tablets, ganja or marijuana, opium and different contraband gadgets value ₹20.70 crore.
Phensedyl is a codeine-laced cough syrup that’s addictive whereas every yaba capsule is a potent mixture of stimulants together with methamphetamine and caffeine.
Cattle introduced from northern India are often smuggled out to Bangladesh from the Cooch Behar and Dhubri sectors. BSF officers mentioned the variety of cattle seized in these sectors was fewer in 2020 than the 22,324 in 2019.
“We caught 263 Indian and 35 Bangladeshi nationals for various criminal activities along the border in 2020 compared to 219 and 27 respectively in 2019. This helped us seize more banned cough syrups and drugs,” a BSF spokesperson mentioned on Tuesday.
The border guards seized 29,688 bottles of phensedyl in 2020, nearly twice that in 2019. The seizure within the instances of marijuana (3,256.588 kg) and yaba tablets (68,684) final yr was nearly thrice the amount in 2019.
“Apart from checking such crimes, we formed two anti-human trafficking units under the frontier. We have been resolving many border issues with the cooperation from the Border Guards Bangladesh,” the spokesperson mentioned, including that the BSF had ramped up vigilance with digital sensors, drones, night-vision cameras and different devices in anticipation of crimes due to leisure of COVID-19 restrictions throughout the nation.
