Trans-border crimes on the rise

By J. V. Siva Prasanna Kumar

NAGERCOIL, SEPT. 21. The Kanyakumari-Kerala border is increasingly becoming problematic to the police. The clandestine movement of spirit, rice including PDS rice and sand and the forest-related offences are keeping the officials on their toes.

The offenders, in most cases, evade the dragnet, crossing the border. The geographical location of the district, particularly it's proximity to Kerala and the dense Western Ghats help the trans-border smuggling activities.

But for the prompt action by the district police, a large quantity of spirit would have crossed the border. This year, the police seized 11,235 litres of hooch smuggled all the way from Bangalore and meant for distribution in Kerala. Further, joint operations with revenue authorities have considerably prevented illicit transportation of sand from the banks of the Kuzhithurai river.

The police seized about four kg of ganja, a lorry, 15 tempos, 11 cars, 6 autorickshaws, 24 bikes and 5 bicycles in various prohibition cases. About 211 non bailable warrants are pending to be served on criminals believed to be hiding in parts of Kerala and Tamil Nadu, according to police sources.

There are 40 or 50 openings in the border area which are `soft targets'. Topographically, the district, for the most part, has semblances to any hilly area and the roads meander at certain places such as Kottavilai near Kallikkavilai into both the territories.

While one side of the hardly eight feet road is Tamil Nadu, the other side is Kerala. The horizontal and vertical splits in the territory often make the offenders easily cross the road and claim themselves to be belonging to the other State.

Another handicap the police encounter is the territorial invasion by their counterparts. When it comes to petty offences, the police do not hesitate to enter the other State to swoop on the culprits.

But things, however, do not always work in their favour. The smuggling of PDS rice through Kerala buses has been worrying the authorities here of late.

The eternal stretches of forests, where perambulation by the forest officials would take days, camouflage the operation of timber smugglers and poachers.

The magnitude of the problem is so large that the Collector Mr. Gagandeep Singh Bedi, recently detained a forest offender C. Vanaja Kumar of Kattakadai, Kerala under the Goondas Act. The checkposts of the police, revenue and forest departments are inadequate to undertake a thorough frisking. Since the issue involves both States, the need of the hour is joint patrolling and joint checkposts.

The Collector has planned to initiate talks with his counterpart in Thiruvananthapuram to evolve a common strategy to effectively curb the crimes. He has proposed to hold a meeting soon at Thiruvananthapuram along with the Superintendent of Police Mr. Sanjay Kumar and District Forest Officer Mr. I. Anwar Deen.

Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Section  : Southern States
Previous : Periakulam hails new CM
Next     : Choked Adyar river breeding mosquitoes