Author: Staff Correspondent
Publication: Assam Tribune
Date: August 22, 2007
URL: http://www.assamtribune.com/scripts/details.asp?id=aug2307\State
The flourishing illegal trade and business
along the Indo-Bangladesh border areas of the four northeastern states has
been draining out huge amount of wealth from the country, according to a survey
conducted by the border study team of Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP).
"The porous border and inefficient manning
has helped the neighbouring country earn approximately rupees three hundred
crores annually from India", state ABVP president Kiran Hazarika told
media persons. Hazarika said that the criminal activities like printing counterfeit
currency notes and smuggling of goods including drugs, weapons and explosives
were rampant in the border areas, thereby threatening national security and
affecting India's economy. He said the study revealed that at least 20,000
bulls were being transported daily to Bangladesh for export and meat consumption,
as the neighbouring country lacked resources to bring up domestic animals
in their land.
The survey found that Ramraikuti, Mankasar,
Tistapar and Binsera in Assam's Dhubri district and Neelam Bazaar, Karimganj
and Kalain in Barak Valley, besides Mohendraganj and Kalaisor in Meghalaya
and Durgapur and Ashrambari in Tripura were some of the towns where fake notes
were being printed. Further, Tistapar, Nilasera, Rustom and Saktasal in Assam's
Dhubri district, Barmantila, Dungurdevango, Tambil and Pirdroba in Meghalaya
and Taziamura, Madimoma, Julaibari, Borinagar, and Bhoulpur in Tripura have
been identified as drug smuggling corridors.
Alarmed by the threat, ABVP has demanded total
sealing of the international border as also electrifying the barbed wire with
provisions of flood lights and upgrading the vigilance network along the Indo-Bangladesh
border.
ABVP has appealed to all citizens particularly
in the border areas to refuse shelter to the infiltrators and discourage activities
that threatened the integrity and security of the nation. While demanding
that the government should use security forces to drive out the illegal migrants
from the country, the students' body also called upon the people to avoid
employing suspected nationals.
The study conducted by ABVP has reiterated
that the unprotected border was responsible for the large-scale infiltration,
growing terrorist activities and other anti-social practices. The border study
team visited 129 border villages and interviewed 638 villagers including 20
village headmen and about 69 important personalities during the ten-day survey
of the border conducted recently, Hazarika said.
