The Sashastra Seema Bal (SSB), the border guarding force deployed on the Indo-Nepal and Indo-Bhutan frontiers, has surpassed past volume and value of seizures of contraband, narcotics and antiques by netting such items worth over Rs 107 crore till October this year. 

Speaking at the Golden Jubilee raising day parade, Director General of SSB Arun Chaudhary said the Force seized antiques worth Rs 60 crore, narcotics valued over Rs 31 crore, contraband (Rs 8.65 crore), forest products (Rs 3.12 crore) and wildlife items (Rs 2.10 crore. Chaudhary also said gold items worth Rs 1.27 crore and fake Indian currency notes with a face value of over Rs 10 lakhs was also seized. In entire 2012, the SSB had seized similar items worth Rs 41 crore. 

The force has also seized 90 arms, including four AK-56 rifles, three Chinese rifles and an American pistol. According to Chaudhary, the Indo-Nepal border has increasingly become vulnerable from the point of view of infiltration of terrorist cadres and hardware. In most of the incidents of terrorist violence, the investigations have pointed that most of the terrorists and explosives entered India through Nepal and Bangladesh. This route has been used by Pak-based and highly trained terrorist groups like Hizbul Mujahideen, Al Badr, lashkar-e-Tayyaba, Jaish-e-Mohammad and Indian Mujahideen. 

“In all these crossings the complicity of the Pak embassy in Kathmandu was coming into notice whose strength grew menacingly high without any other ostensible work to show. On the borders, the Pak ISI ensured that there was growth of infrastructure which was congenial to their operational needs of India directed violent activities,” Chaudhary wrote in an article in 50th anniversary issue of SSB Samachar, an in-house magazine of the Force.  

Speaking on the occasion, Union Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde said, “We have open borders with some countries as we have very old friendly relations with them. People can move across in these areas without any problem but we have seen anti-national elements take advantage of this... This is a big challenge.”