Police stop Maoists from crossing over

Lucknow: Police have stepped up security checks along the porous land border with Nepal to prevent Maoist rebels from entering India to buy weapons.

This follows weeks of protests in the Himalayan kingdom against the king's rule, police said Saturday.

The police alert follows the arrest last week of five Nepalese as they tried to cross into Nepal carrying arms and ammunition, said senior police offical Jaiveer Yadav.

"Two AK-47s (assault rifles) and more than 200 live cartridges were recovered from them," Yadav said.

Deputy Superintendent of Police, Akhilesh Shukla, said large quantities of arms and explosives were seized last month from a truck carrying coal to Nepal.

The material included nearly 10,000 electronic detonators and 2,500 kilograms of explosives, he said.

"The explosives were meticulously concealed between two layers of coal," Shukla said.

The rebels, who say they are inspired by Chinese revolutionary Mao Zedong, have been fighting since 1996 to replace Nepal's monarchy with a communist state.

The insurgency has left more than 13,000 dead. They have joined an alliance of seven Nepalese political parties leading protests against the king, who promised on Friday to restore democracy.

On Saturday, Secretary Uttar Pradesh state government, S K Agarwal said paramilitary forces have been asked to help local police stop illegal movement of people across the border and identify Maoist sympathizers in Indian border villages.

"We are sure there must be people in India who are helping the Maoist groups in procuring weapons," he said.

An Indian customs official, Harsh Gupta said it was impossible to check every vehicle traveling from India to Nepal.

"More than 250 trucks go to Nepal every day from India. It is not possible to check each of them," Harsh Gupta said in a telephone conversation from Sanauli, the main entry point in Nepal from India. "Also, we are short-staffed."

Nepal shares a 1,747-kilometer (1,085-mile) land border with India.