During the nationwide lockdown to curb the spread of Covid-19 smuggling of drugs and Fake Indian Currency Notes (FICN) across the Bangladesh and Pakistan borders is continuing unabated, albeit in much lesser numbers, Business Standard reports on April 15. According to the seizure and apprehension data (between January 1- March 24 and from March 25-April 12), the Pakistan and Bangladesh borders, guarded by the Border Security Force (BSF), saw a number of such instances prompting the force to tighten vigil.
"The force has issued directions to be on alert against all border crimes. While the seizure quantities have gone down during the lockdown period, such instances are happening almost every day especially along the Bangladesh border. We are determined to ensure the sanctity of the two borders at all times," BSF spokesperson in Delhi Shubhendu Bharadwaj stated.
Along the Punjab border, drug seizures came down from 97 kgs to about 18 kgs between the two comparable periods.
Smuggling of FICN, in terms of value, was also reported about three times lesser across multiple frontiers (border head offices) of the BSF along Bangladesh. The seizure of Yaba tablets, abused across the border in Bangladesh, also fell by almost 17 times with the border force seizing about 9,710 tablets during the lockdown period as compared to over 4.8 lakh tablets seized in the days since the beginning of this year. Seizure of various kinds of narcotics along the Bangladesh border also came down drastically during the lockdown, but instances with lesser quantity of narcotics were continuously intercepted by the BSF.