At a press conference on December 17, Sashastra Seema Bal (SSB) Director General (DG) Kumar Rajesh Chandra said that 59 nationals of Pakistan, China, Bangladesh and the US were caught trying to enter India through the Indo-Nepal border in 2019.

Chandra said the increase in the number of such infiltrations through the Nepal border was a result of stringent security measures along the Indo-Pakistan border to check illegal activities including terrorism and supply of fake currency notes. Also, increased vigil on the Indo-Pakistan border after the abrogation of Article 370 had forced infiltrators from Pakistan to take the Nepal route. In 2018, the SSB arrested 28 infiltrators, and handed them to the police.

“Whether they were terrorists, fake Indian currency note (FICN) operatives or smugglers, we wouldn’t know for sure because we hand them over immediately to the local police or the intelligence agencies,” said Chandra. The intelligence agencies had confirmed that the infiltrators had ulterior motives. Talking about the two US nationals, who were apprehended while crossing into the country, the DG said, they were “inadvertent crossers”. The same was the case with a Chinese group, which was caught while on a sojourn along the Nepal border area.