NEW DELHI: In view of the massive jail break in Nepal during the ‘Generation Z’ protests, India’s intelligence agencies have sounded alert, suggesting that a sizable number among over 13,500 prisoners, who escaped the prisons, are terror operatives, crime lords and mafia, officials said on Wednesday.
They said that the police forces of the bordering states and the border guarding force SSB have alerted against possible attempts by such elements to enter India.
The officials said that intelligence inputs were that among those attempting to cross over to the Indian side “are terror suspects linked to Pakistan-based outfits, drug traffickers, kidnappers, and contract killers active along Indo-Nepal borders”.
Meanwhile, the Sashastra Seema Bal (SSB) has confirmed that the force has so far managed to block and detain 72 such jailbreak suspects.
According to intelligence sources, these fugitives, who have been nabbed by the SSB, already have their linkages in India, and they wanted to enter the country to find shelter.
The sources said inputs have been received about Jaish-e-Mohammad-linked terror operatives entering Nepal on tourist visas a few days before the violent protests erupted in the Himalayan country. Their aim was to enter India, but since they failed, they flew to a far-east country, they added.
Meanwhile, the Union Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) has already issued an advisory to all the bordering states to remain alert and has asked central security forces, particularly the SSB, to step up their vigil along borders in Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Uttarakhand.
Even a senior Commandant of SSB leading a battalion in Sitamarhi district of Bihar told this newspaper that the force has been facing the risk beyond ordinary crimes and criminals. “As per intelligence we have received from our sources from both sides of the border, a few of the criminals, who staged the jailbreak in Nepal have direct links with transnational terror and organised crime networks. They may also attempt to seek support from elements in other countries,” he said.
He said that inputs are also there that many of the escapees may not make an immediate attempt to cross over, instead, they could lie low for a while with a hope to get an opportunity, and guards against them would be lowered.
The porous Indo-Nepal border has long posed challenges for Indian security forces, with both criminal syndicates and terror groups using the open frontier for movement, smuggling, extortion and terror-linked activities.
