Indo-Bangladesh Border

Section 144 along Bangladesh border to check smuggling

Aiming to prevent breach of peace and large scale smuggling of essential commodities into Bangladesh by miscreants and anti-social elements, the district magistrate of Cooch Behar, Ms Smaraki Mahapatra, has promulgated Section 144 CrPC along the entire Indo-Bangladesh border in Cooch Behar district. The said order shall remain in force for sixty days, said the District Information Officer Mr KK Sarkar. 

According to the order any person violating the order shall be liable for prosecution under Section 188 IPC. The order was issued on 18 March.
It was learnt that the prohibitory order was promulgated following information that there was serious apprehension of breach of peace in the International border areas of the district due to shortage of essential commodities caused by large scale smuggling into Bangladesh by miscreants and anti-social elements.
According to the order, no person shall carry twenty-four scheduled commodities within a distance of one-kilometre from the Bangladesh border in eight police stations in the district, from 9 p.m. to 6 a.m. without prior written permission of the DM or the SDO or the BDO concerned. These police stations are : Tufanganj, Mathabhanga, Mekhliganj, Kuchlibari, Dinhata, Sitai, Sitalkuchi and Haldibari.
By the same order, a ban was also clamped on the grazing of cattle within 300 metres of the Indo-Bangladesh border from 6 p.m. to 6 a.m., Mr Sarkar added.
Following the order, the haats, bazaars and shops of the concerned zone shall not transact business from 8 p.m. to 6 a.m.
The commodities restricted for carrying, described in Schedule-A in the order, are: rice and paddy, wheat and wheat products, kerosene, sugar, mustard oil, coconut oil, fertiliser, textile goods, iron and steel, bidi leaves, tobacco, machine parts, baby food, cycle parts, salt, tea, tyre and tubes, dry batteries, petrol and diesel, raw jute, pulses, cattle, cement and betel nuts.