The Sashastra Seema Bal (SSB) posted at the India-Nepal border in Panitanki of Siliguri subdivision on Saturday apprehended six suspected Myanmarese nationals without valid papers, The Telegraph reported.
According to the report, sources said that troopers of the SSB’s 41st battalion, posted at Panitanki, which connects to Kakarvitta in Nepal, intercepted the suspected Myanmarese students while they were trying to cross the border to visit an adventure park in Nepal.
All six had enrolled at Witter Theological College in Vankhosung, in Wokha district of Nagaland, in 2023 for a degree course in theology, the source said.
“They had come to Siliguri on a holiday with Indian and Nepali students of the same institution and were traveling in three groups. They were planning to go to an adventure park in Nepal’s Birtamod when they were nabbed,” the source added.
The SSB personnel initially nabbed three students, followed by three others a short while later. All six were reportedly travelling in groups with other students, sources said.
“The first group, consisting of nine students — including three of the suspected Myanmarese nationals — was intercepted while attempting to cross into Nepal en route to Happy Land Adventure Park in Birtamod. Within a few hours, the BIT team successfully apprehended the remaining three suspects from the two other groups associated with the college,” the Times of India reported a police officer as saying.
It was reported that, turing the preliminary investigation, SSB officers learned that the six youths, aged between 25 and 30, had entered Mizoram in India in 2022 and 2023 without any passport or visa.
“They had even obtained fraudulently prepared Aadhaar cards and voter ID cards, and one of them had a fake PAN card. Most of these documents had been made in Delhi,” said a source.
Currently, SSB officers are interrogating them to determine why they infiltrated India without valid documents, it was reported. They will be handed over to the police in due course for further legal proceedings, sources said.
The accused were identified as Maji Myo Htoi Li (26), Langh Ngaih Niang (28), Naw Thaung (27), Francis Tawk Lian Sang (20), Van Za Lian (20), and Roland Nawl Tling Lian (23). Kharibari Police produced the six in court, which remanded them to 14-day judicial custody, according to Times of India.
