Curfew along Indo-Bangla border for 2-month

Authorities in Assam’s Cachar district have extended ongoing night curfew along India-Bangladesh border for another two months.

This is significant in view of prevailing political turmoil in the neighbouring country. The Bangladesh election commission’s announcement for holding the 10th parliamentary elections on January 5, 2014, has triggered violence in the country further as major opposition parties have rejected the plan. Cachar district shares 32-km-long border with Bangladesh. Cachar district magistrate Gukul Mohan Hazarika in an order said the prohibitory orders, imposed under Section 144 CrPC, will bar people from moving along within a radius of one km from the border between 8 pm and 5 am for a period of two months. The order will also bar fishing at night in the Surma river that divides the two countries in this part of the north-east. The prohibitory order will also bar movement of rickshaws, handcarts and other vehicles carrying rice, sugar, kerosene oil and other commodities within a radius of 5 km area from the international border between 8 pm and 5 am. This is because of checking smuggling activities in the border. Official sources on Friday said the order was promulgated on the basis of the intelligence inputs which had warned of the possibility of infiltration bid by some militant outfits and miscreants into Indian territory from across the international border. The work to erect barbed wire fencing and floodlighting along the international border is in progress. So far nearly 80 per cent of work has been completed. The job has been entrusted with the public sector National Building Construction Corporation (NBCC). Barak Valley areas including Cachar and Karimganj districts of Assam shares 134 km of border with Bangladesh. India shares a 4,096-km border with Bangladesh, including 2,216 km in West Bengal, 856 km in Tripura, 443 km in Meghalaya, 318 km in Mizoram and 262 km in Assam.