The Himal World Desk
Siliguri, December 18: A Pakistan-made live mortar was recovered from near the Indo- Bangladesh border in Cooch Behar district of West Bengal on Tuesday, resulting in the usual media hype about its discovery when, as a matter of fact, it is common to come across landmines and mortars from previous war zones across the world.
When such unexploded devices are found, the security establishment follows the normal protocol and defuses the object, which is exactly what the BSF personnel did by duly informing the army in this instance. "As it was unexploded, we, with the help of local police, asked people in the neighborhood to be alert and cordoned off the area from where the mortar shell was found (and diffused it)" said a BSF official. 
The mortar was discovered accidentally on Tuesday by a septuagenarian farmer Hiten Modak of Jhikri village in Cooch Behar when he was tilling his land. In the process of mechanized tilling, his tractor came across a hard object which later turned out to a live mortar. He and his fellow villagers immediately informed the BSF personnel posted nearby at a place under Chowdhary Hat gram panchayat, Sahebganj police station in Dinhata sub division.
The BSF personnel subsequently identified it as a live mortar and diffused the device on Wednesday. "We took the shell to an isolated place and exploded it on Wednesday," said Dhiman Mitra, the sub divisional police officer of Dinhata.

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