Kolkata, Dec 12 (IANS): Intelligence agencies, both central and state, are on high alert in West Bengal following inputs about the sudden increase in the number of outsiders hiring rooms in different villages close to the international borders with Bangladesh.

Sources said that most of the new faces, who suddenly surfaced in the bordering villages, were aged between their mid-twenties and early thirties. As per inputs received by the security agencies from the natives of these villages, the new faces rarely interact with the local people.

Now this development, sources said, has kept the security and intelligence agencies on high alert mainly for two reasons, the first being inputs about attempts by activists of Hizb-ut-Tahrir (HUT) to open sleeper cells at different points in the bordering districts of West Bengal with Bangladesh.

The second is the arrival of winter when illegal infiltration through the porous borders is generally high, taking advantage of the dense fog in these remote bordering areas after sunset.

These two reasons, coupled with the ongoing tension in neighbouring Bangladesh, have prompted the security and central agencies to beef up surveillance at these borders, both land and maritime borders, with the additional headache of outsiders starting to flock to the bordering villages.

Sources said that the central intelligence and security agencies are regularly updating their higher officials in New Delhi as well as the Union Ministry of Home Affairs about the new developments at the India-Bangladesh bordering villages in West Bengal.

Intelligence agencies, sources added, have also got specific information that two active HUT associates recently came to West Bengal with valid Bangladeshi passports posing as students and had meetings with some local youths in Malda and Murshidabad districts.

These two HUT activists, as per intelligence inputs, initially picked up conversations with the local youths in these two districts discussing religious issues and thereafter carried on the conversation to the level of opening sleeper cells in the bordering districts. These two Bangladeshi citizens interacting with the local youth have been identified as Ridwan Maruf and Sabbir Amir.