A trip from Pakistan to India via sea route without proper documents can be as cheap as 3,750 Pakistani rupees. No kidding this, but a startling revelation made by eight Pakistani nationals, who were apprehended by the Indian Coast Guard (ICG) near Nalia in Bhuj on Sunday morning.

A Pakistani motorboat had dropped them on an uninhabited island opposite Jakhau, from where the ICG personnel apprehended and later handed them over to the Kutch police.

In what seems to be an organised racket, Kutch police officials interrogating the eight accused of sneaking into India illegally, said on Wednesday that an agent in Karachi had mediated the deal in the first week of October for 30,000 Pakistani rupees.

“The eight boarded a specified boat at Hyaderi, about 40 kms from Karachi, on October 17, and were dropped on the

island around 1 am on October 19,” said Girish Pandya, Deputy Superintendent of Police, Nakhatrana division.

According to the police, the boat left Hyadari around mid-noon on Friday and reached Ketibandar in Pakistani waters by late that night. They resumed their journey around 6 am on Saturday after spending a night in a lodge there. Enroute their destination, they halted at a place called Savla Pir in Indian waters for about half-an-hour and continued after paying obeisance at a famous saint's dargah there, the police added.

“It seems that the four-member crew was familiar with the particular sea route they chose. This route has almost no security deployment. The accused also told us that they were assured security on the grounds that the ‘expert’ crew had safely ferried several people in the same way

before,” Pandya said.

The police have seized 15,000 Indian rupees from the accused. “The Karachi-based accused had facilitated the currency transfer before putting these people on boards. The payment made to the boat owners was done in Pakistani currency,” he added.

While fencing on the Indo-Pak land border across Gujarat is nearing its completion, the coastal and creek areas continue to remain porous and the security troops are not able to reach there because of rough and marshy terrains. Amid increased perception of terror attacks in Gujarat, the state intelligence has already alerted the BSF and the ICG against creek and coastal areas now being more vulnerable to illegal infiltration and smuggling

“We cannot rule out the possibility of terrorists and anti-social elements using the same mode to sneak into India,” Pandya said.

“Coastal area of over 60 kms between Medi in Kutch and Jakhau in Bhuj is completely unguarded. In at least three cases of detected or foiled infiltration bids, including one with counterfeit Indian currency, intrusion took place from this stretch,” said an officer of the Gujarat frontier, BSF.

Sources in the ICG said the boat used in this case was a twin-engine one. “This is because only a twin-engine boat can sail through this kind of terrain, which is full of shifting bars,” said an officer.

A day before apprehending the eight – Mohammed Hussain Chavada (46), Mohammed Salim Hussain (21), Mohammed Aslam Hussain (19), Amina Hussain (35), Savra (16), Suhra (14), Suleman Hussain (12) and Mohammed Srif Hussain (10) – the ICG had on October 18 unearthed a liquor smuggling racket through the sea route. The ICG had caught 12 foreign liquor laden fishing boats some 20 miles off the Jakhau coast.