Nepal will deploy paramilitary forces along its border with India to check cross-border criminal activities at a time when the country's Terai plains has seen increasing violence and political upheavals.
The government decided to deploy the Armed Police Force along the border with India after a cabinet meeting chaired by Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala on Monday.
According to Baman Prasad Neupane, spokesperson at the home ministry, the objectives of deploying security posts in the border areas is to check increasing activities of dacoits and smugglers and infiltration of criminals into Nepal.
He said the government has decided to set up 16 border security posts with the deployment of the APF personnel from Jhapa in the east to Kanchanpur in the west.
Neupane said most of the border security posts were either poorly managed in the past or displaced during the decade-long Maoist insurgency.
The government's decision to deploy new security posts along the border comes at a time when there are reports about the possible infiltration of Hindu groups from India into the Madhesi movement in the Terai plains, turning it violent.
The two neighbours share a 1,700-kilometers (1,060-mile) border with citizens on both sides being allowed free movement into each other's territory without documents or visas. India has bolstered its security on the border over the past few years and has long demanded that Nepal do the same.
