The residents of Budhaura, a border village of Siraha, have one complaint - we cannot sleep well at night. The reason is that when the night falls, the noise of vehicles and people starts here. According to the locals, liquor is stored here especially during the day and smuggled into India after nightfall.

Residents of Abhaynagar, which is located next to the border, are also suffering from the same problem. Locals allege that smugglers have recently made the village a storage place. Locals say that the smuggling gangs bring the goods at night and store them here and transport them from here during the day .

These two villages are examples, the experience of common people in all the villages in the border area of ​​the district is similar. In recent times, uninterrupted smuggling has flourished at the checkpoints of the district. 'When people sleep, and the smugglers wake up,' said Suraj Mahato of another village in Bariyarpatti, 'it has not only damaged the state, the people here are also terrified.'

Suraj also narrated his terrifying experience with Kantipur. He was returning from Lahan via Lahan-Bhagwanpur road last week at 12:30 pm. He said that he narrowly escaped being hit by a pick-up going towards Lahan at high speed near Maheshwari.

'I drove my motorcycle down towards the farm, if I hadn't done that the pickup would have blown over, I narrowly escaped,' he said, 'the goat was screaming in the pickup .' According to him, Khasi goats, which are cheap in India, are smuggled through this road every day at night.

According to Mohan Yadav of Bhagwanpur, sugar, lentils, rice, potatoes, onions, clothes, drugs, gutkha, motor parts, cosmetics, goats, khasi, fish and other goods are being smuggled from India to Nepal through Madar, Thadi, Bariyarpatti, Chatri crossings in Siraha and goods such as marijuana, gas lighters, Chinese apples, pepper, liquor etc. are being smuggled from Nepal to India.

Smugglers use porters, bicycles, motorcycles, auto rickshaws, pick-ups to buses to exchange goods. Rameshwar Sah of Thadi alleges that even though goods worth crores of rupees are being illegally smuggled daily, the police administration acts as if they have not seen it.

'Every day millions of goods are smuggled, we can't say that the state has suffered a loss, because there will be threats,' he asked, 'what do you think when the police administration is together, if the administration is honest, who has the courage to smuggle?'

Nepal Police, Armed Police, National Investigation Department, Customs Office and other personnel are formally deployed to control smuggling at the border. Apart from this, the security agencies have also mobilized 'Ghumua' at the border . However, Arvind Mandal of Kusandi alleges that the people who smuggle the migrants will be in trouble and their job is not to control the smuggling but to arrange the lines and collect them. According to him, especially those who traffic in a commercial manner smuggle by reporting menstruation to the government agencies. 

Similarly, the duty police and customs officers sometimes take money from those who bring goods for household consumption or for sale. Rampat Yadav of Arnama, who was coming from India through Bariyarpatti crossing with two sacks of onions, said that he had to pay 100 rupees to the police and 100 rupees to the customs staff at the Bariyarpatti check post.

The chief district officer of Siraha, Vishwaprakash Aryal, denies that there is institutional involvement in smuggling. He said that there is a large network of smuggling gangs and lack of sufficient manpower, and the control of smuggling is becoming a matter of concern.

'Institutional involvement in smuggling is unimaginable, we have always tried to control smuggling,' he told Kantipur, 'because of the large network of smuggling gangs and we don't have enough manpower, it seems complicated, everyone's help in controlling smuggling is equally necessary.'