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PATNA, India, Friday (AFP) Al-Qaeda and other militant outfits have taken to large-scale smuggling of weapons and cash across India's eastern borders from Bhutan, Nepal and Bangladesh, a senior customs official said.

The development has prompted Indian authorities to declare its eastern corridor a "highly sensitive" zone and has ordered a customs alert, a sweep on foreigners residing illegally in the area and a crackdown on suspect banking accounts, the official said.

An inter-government exchange of information on militants' networks had also been initiated, according to N. K. P. Sinha, newly-appointed chief commissioner of customs in Patna, capital of eastern Bihar state.

Sinha said the authorities had received credible information that al-Qaeda and the formerly Pakistan-based militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba had started functioning from Nepal, Bhutan and Bangladesh and were involved in large-scale smuggling operations.

Sinha, who has been appointed especially to crack down on smuggling from the three countries, said there had been a noticeable change from the days when smuggled items were mainly silk and electronic goods.

"Huge arms caches, drugs and fake currencies have taken over," Sinha told AFP.

"The very change in the list of smuggled items shows the involvement of terrorists in the trade," he added.

Bihar in particular has seen a surge in arms smuggling, with consignments of Chinese and Pakistani arms being intercepted in recent months.

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI), India's central bank, has meanwhile, directed governments of the eastern states to carry out thorough searches for fake and illegal accounts that are possibly being used by militant organisations.

RBI chief general manager, S. Karuppaswamy, has handed to the state government of Bihar a list of 310 foreigners from Iran, Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan and the Gulf nations who may have opened accounts for militant purposes, a banking source said.

The list includes names of al-Qaeda members and senior members of the former Afghanistan government, the source said.

The RBI has also asked state authorities to search for accounts in fake names, while any transactions with the "Day Afghanistan Montaz Bank" are to be reported immediately.

The RBI has also alerted state governments that some non-governmental organisations may be acting as a conduit for foreign funds originating from militant groups.

Central bank officials said the RBI order comes in the wake of a United Nations Security Council resolution calling for global drive against financial lifelines of terrorist organisations post September 11.

The Indian government has already handed over the list to the Dhaka government of camps inside Bangladesh it claims are being used by militant outfits.

Nepal, meanwhile, has already committed itself to to cooperating with the Indian government in not allowing the use of its territory for anti-Indian militant activities.

Sinha said he lacked the manpower to check smuggling.

"India has an open and porous 700 kilometer (440 mile) boundary with Nepal and to man that area we have only 600 staff," he said.

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