Liquor, cattle seized on Indo-Bangla border

The Border Security Force (BSF) have seized a huge quantity of liquor bottles, cattle, phensedyle, timber and other contraband items and apprehended five smugglers – one of them a Bangladeshi national – on the India-Bangladesh international border in Meghalaya’s Garo Hills region in the past one week.

A BSF official in the Meghalaya Frontier headquarters in Shillong said both Indian and Bangladeshi smugglers were trying to smuggle out various items into the other side despite the raging floods that have affected the Garo Hills region in the past nine days.

“Smugglers were particularly trying to take advantage of the overflowing rivers to float down wooden logs illegally felled in Meghalaya, and our troops managed to seize about 360 CFT of wooden logs in the past week,” the BSF official said.

While five smugglers – one of them a Bangladeshi national – were apprehended and handed over to the police, the BSF troops seized 1619 bottles of liquor, 145 bottles of Phnsedyle, 18 cows and other contraband items from them. These items were worth at least Rs 14 lakhs.