Indian goods are being smuggled into the country through different border points as border guards of both India and Bangladesh, manning those points, remain inattentive to illegal cross-border trades.
There are allegations that the guards sometimes “compromise” themselves by accepting bribe and allowing illegal arrivals, at the expense of local farmers who have to face stiff challenges from the relatively cheaper Indian goods and produces.
According to sources familiar with the business, there is a wholesale market at the Zero Line border point in Mogholhat under the Lalmonirhat Sadar upazila which sells smuggled items, with the Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB) officials “fully” aware of it.
Thousands of sacks of Indian betel nuts and different types of spices are channelled through the border and sold here in broad daylight. Retailers from different areas of the district usually crowd this market.
These goods come by boat from Indian villages of Jaridharla, Daribash and Nagartari, located under the Dinhata police station of Cooch Behar district in Paschimbanga, sources said.
Last week, a special team of BGB 15 battalion raided the area and seized 76 sacks of Indian betel nuts worth about Tk600,000, but locals said it was nothing more than a “perfunctory” exercise as business resumed on the very next day.
The market has been in operation for the last five months with items sold as varied as betel nuts, phensydil, hemp, alcoholic drugs and substances and even arms and ammunitions. The latter categories of items are smuggled through the sacks used for betel nuts.
“Two persons named Jamal Hossain and Jahangir Hossain were recruited as linemen with the responsibility to collect bribe from the smugglers. They take Tk50 for each sack of Indian items in the name of ‘managing’ BGB and police officials,” said a trader, on the condition of anonymity.
“It’s kind of like a marriage of convenience from which all parties involved want to have a profit. They save each other’s back,” he added.
Local farmers, however, said with the cheaper Indian produces flooding the markets, they were facing difficulty in selling their own produces. They blamed members of law enforcement agencies for their slack monitoring.
In this regard, 15 BGB Battalion’s Mogholhat Company Commander Abdul Hamid admitted problems with checking the influx of smuggled goods. “If we have information that illegal items are being smuggled, through sacks of betel nuts or anything, we take action.”
He, however, denied allegations that BGB officials were taking bribe to allow smuggling.
