The Border Security Force (BSF) has found an 80-metre-long tunnel near the Chopra-Fatehpur border outpost in north Bengal, and officials suspect it was being built by cattle smugglers to facilitate their trade, a top BSF officer said on Tuesday.
The under-construction tunnel was found near the Chopra-Fatehpur border outpost adjacent to Kisanganj in Bihar.
BSF deputy inspector general Devi Sharan Singh said at the BSF’s sectoral headquarters in Kisanganj that the smugglers were digging the tunnel under the fence to overcome the problem of cattle smuggling to Bangladesh due to fencing of the Indo-Bangladesh border in the area.
The tunnel was being constructed through a tea garden allegedly by the cattle smugglers for a long time surreptitiously in the darkness of the night for some time, said the DIG.
Singh said the BSF has enhanced patrolling on the border in wake of the discovery of the tunnel.