Ali goes to jail for a pair of sports shoes and Rs 500

Kolkata, April 14 (IANS) A pair of sports shoes and Rs 500 in cash was all that it took to turn a youth from a village near the India-Bangladesh border in West Bengal into a smuggler.

Worse still is the fact that he had no clue of what the cellophane wrapped packet that he was handed over contained. He was just to hand it over to somebody without checking the content.

Fortunately, the packet had eight gold biscuits inside. Had it contained a kilogram of explosives like RDX, young Ansar Ali could have spent the better part of his life behind bars, trying to convince the authorities that he is not part of any terror outfit.

The incident occurred in Murshidabad district of West Bengal on Wednesday morning. Troops of the Border Security Force (BSF) from the Boyraghat Border Outpost in the Malda Sector apprehended Ali and the packet was seized.

The eight gold biscuits inside weighed 933.07 gm and are valued at Rs 49,88,192. Ali wept during the interrogation. He had no clue that he was being roped into such a vicious racket when the man from across the zero line offered him sports shoes and Rs 500 just to hand over some 'mobile phone batteries' to a 'friend'. The man told him that his friend would give him the sports shoes and Rs 500 after receiving the packet.

But what was Ali doing near the zero line? This resident of the Pirojpur village under the Raghunathgunj police station in Murshidabad claimed that he had simply gone to graze his cattle in the fields near the border when this unknown person from across the border pillar approached him.

"I thought this was going to be easy. Who checks for mobile phone batteries after all? I was keen to return home with a pair of sports shoes and Rs 500 by the end of the day," he told the BSF.

Surjeet Singh Guleria, DIG, BSF, and PRO, South Bengal Frontier, said that this is where the youth in Indian villages go wrong.

"We have been holding camps regularly to educate the villagers about the risks involved in accepting such packages from people from across the border. We even organise training camps for the youth so they may join forces like the BSF and stay away from crime.

"Despite all this, if people carry out such activities, we have to be strict. The BSF has a mandate to stop all illegal cross-border activities, whether its smuggling, human trafficking or infiltration. Smugglers will have to return to the mainstream or they will not be spared. Don't choose an easy life of crime just for a few rupees," he said.

Ali, along with the gold biscuits, has been handed over to the Customs department at Jangipur, Murshidabad, for further inquiry to try and nab the main perpetrators.

Ali may get bail after some time but will have to appear in court from time to time before his sentencing. He has also got his name registered in the list of possible smugglers on whom the authorities keep a close watch whenever they approach the international border.