As many as 200 former militants and their families have crossed over to India after the Centre recently streamlined the procedures for entry of such Jammu & Kashmir terrorists from the Indo-Nepal border.
Another 250 former terrorists are waiting to enter India from Nepal after security agencies prepared new procedures for crossing the border against the backdrop of a controversy over the arrest of a suspected militant Syed liyaqat Shah on the frontier.
The former terrorists are permitted to cross over to India from Nepal through the official check posts of Sashastra Seema Bal that guards the 1,751 km border with the Himalayan nation.
The paramilitary force has also deputed personnel hailing from Jammu & Kashmir and conversant with the Kashmiri language to man these locations where the former terrorists reach for crossing over to the Indian side.
The issue of former terrorists choosing the Nepal border to cross over to India came to the light after the row over the arrest of Syed liyaqat Shah by the Delhi Police on suspicion of being a Hizbul Mujahideen terrorist while Jammu & Kashmir Police claimed he was on his way to surrender in March this year.
The Union Home Ministry recently institutionalised procedures for surrender of former Kashmiri terrorists who had crossed over to PoK in the nineties.
Officials said the Jammu & Kashmir Government has validated a list of such people and shared it with the Union Home Ministry. The SSB is the nodal authority to receive such people coming from Nepal and handover to J&K police.
“I can just say that this is a friendly border but we have seen in the last few years that some elements have started exploiting the frontier to carry out their nefarious designs in cities like Delhi, Mumbai, Hyderabad and Bangalore. We are always alert,” the SSB Director General Arun Chaudhary told reporters here.