A high alert was sounded on Sunday in five districts along the India-Nepal border, in eastern Uttar Pradesh, after intelligence inputs suggested that two terror suspects were trying to enter the state to escape to Nepal, said a senior police official at the state police headquarters in Lucknow on Sunday.
The alert, he said, was not from any central intelligence agency but was local intelligence input in Gorakhpur zone.
“It initially came from independent sources of local authorities as well as Shashtra Seema Bal, which guards the 599.3 km open international border that UP shares with Nepal,” said the official.
While the Nepal border runs long the state’s seven districts, the alert has been sounded in five districts, including Bahraich, Shravasti, Maharajganj, Kushinagar and Siddharthnagar.
“We are taking no chance as the input has come closer to Republic Day (January 26). The direction has been issued to the check movement of suspicious elements along the Nepal border,” he added.
“It has come to our knowledge that two wanted terrorists, both from southern states of the country, can escape to Nepal from Uttar Pradesh,” inspector general (IG) of police, Basti range, Ashutosh Kumar confirmed.
Kumar said the suspects’ photographs have been circulated so that they could be identified and intercepted in case of any possible movement towards Nepal border.
He said the intelligence input also suggests that the two suspects were last spotted in West Bengal’s Silliguri district on December 16.
