Over 10,000 infiltrators held along Bangladesh border

NEW DELHI: As many as 10,746 infiltrators were apprehended along the India-Bangladesh border since 2014, the government informed Lok Sabha on Tuesday. Of these 9,702 were intercepted in the border regions of West Bengal alone.
Junior home minister Nityanand Rai, in his written reply to a question in Lok Sabha, said border guarding forces had apprehended 369 infiltrators from the India-Bangladesh border in West Bengal till June 30 this year, against 900 in 2018; 992 in 2017; 1,875 in 2016; 3,296 in 2015 and 2,260 in 2014.
In comparison, 65 infiltrators were caught along Assam’s border with Bangladesh between January 2014 and June 2019. This was less than the 677 infiltrators apprehended along the international border with Tripura and 281 on the Meghalaya border. Mizoram saw the least infiltrators (21) apprehended in the corresponding period.
Rai said even though border guarding forces conducted regular patrolling and undertook anti-tunnelling exercise to stop illegal infiltration from Bangladesh, some illegal migrants were able to enter surreptitiously, taking advantage of the difficult riverine terrain in parts of the international border that are not amenable to fencing.