Riot police stand guard in Kathmandu on Monday, the last day of campaigning for the April 10 polls. (Reuters)

April 7: The Indian government will seal the border with Nepal tomorrow to prevent breach of peace during the general elections to be held in the neighbouring country on April 10. The ban will be on till Friday evening.

Even vehicles, especially trucks, bound for Nepal through NH34 will be stopped in Malda so that there is no congestion at the border.

“The border will be remain closed from 6am tomorrow till 6am on April 11,” said B.D. Sarkar, the officiating commandant of the SSB’s Ranidanga sector headquarters.

The Ranidanga unit is responsible for guarding the 288km India-Nepal border, from Gangtok in Sikkim to Thakurganj in Bihar. The stretch comprises 70 border outposts.

The decision to seal the border was taken last month, at a meeting between the Darjeeling district administration and the chief district officers of Pasther, Jhapa and Ilam in eastern Nepal.

In Malda, the district administration today received a directive from the state government to stop all Nepal-bound vehicles travelling on NH34 from tomorrow. “The vehicles will be stopped at the three temporary checkposts we are setting up. One will be near the Regulated Market at Englishbazar, Bhabuk in Old Malda and in Gajole,” said Malda additional district magistrate Purnachandra Shit. “We do not know the exact number of vehicles that will be stopped,” said Malda superintendent of police Satyajit Bandyopadhyay. Mainly vehicles from south Bengal travel through Malda on way to Nepal.

The Darjeeling district police have also set up special checkpoints. “We have started to check every vehicle entering the Siliguri region through Ghoshpukur, Matigara, Fulbari, Chekamari (near the Bihar border) and Murligach,” said Rahul Srivastava, the district police superintendent.

In view of the polls in Nepal and the possibility that the special checks may hamper normal traffic, C.V. Murlidhar, the inspector-general of traffic, was in Siliguri last week to hold a meeting with police officials from Darjeeling and Jalpaiguri.

Travel operators, too, are prepared. “Keeping in mind the election, most tourists have now stopped visiting Nepal. Once the election is over, tourist traffic will resume,” said Hemraj Karki, a member of Jhapa Travel Agents’ Association in Kakarvitta, about 45km from Siliguri in eastern Nepal.