Janakpurdham, November 1:

Villages lying alongside the East-West Highway, along the Indo-Nepal border, have witnessed a surge in robberies, thanks to the inability of security personnel to reach the affected areas in time.

In the last two weeks alone, at least two villagers reportedly got killed and as many as 10 villagers were injured when different groups of dacoits attacked the villages lying in the districts of Dhanusha, Mahotari and Sarlahi.

Data on crimes reveal that the occurrence of other crimes — save robberies — has gone down in these districts. But from the third week of the month of October till date, more and more robberies have been reported in the villages of Sarlahi, Mahotari and Dhanusha districts. The deputy superintendent of police of the Janakpur Zonal Police Office, Krishna Tiwari, however, said that the police had actually been able to bring the number of robberies down.

“Some dacoits have been arrested and the police have been looking for the others,” he said, adding more and more robberies occur during Dashain and Tihar. As security base camps are located quite far away from each other and forests lie along the highway, robbers are targeting vehicles plying the highway, security officials said.