Taking advantage of the dark, a vehicle of the smugglers hit Commandant Mandal
A senior official of the Border Security Force received serious injured after he was hit by a vehicle of cattle smugglers around in Tripura on Monday. Deepak Kumar Mandal, Officiating Commandant of 145 battalion of BSF, has been airlifted to Kolkata and his condition is said to be critical.
A BSF official said that Commandant Mandal was halting at the Belardappa border outpost - about 60 km south of state capital Agartala - when he noticed some suspected vehicular movement around 1:20 am. The BSF men tried to stop those vehicles, but they refused which led to a chase.
Taking advantage of the dark, a vehicle of the smugglers hit Commandant Mandal, pushing him down a gorge, the official said. Tripura police has detained the vehicle and arrested the driver.
Commandant Mandal was immediately rushed to a local hospital in Agartala where doctors found he had serious head and back injuries. As his condition deteriorated, he was airlifted to a private hospital in Kolkata for better treatment around 11:40 am.
Airport sources said Commandant Mandal's condition was very critical and his whole body had bandages.
Tripura shares an 856 km border with Bangladesh but despite barbed wire fencing coming up in more than 70 percent of the border, smuggling is rampant.