Vikas Thapa, 38, was carrying a Bajaj table fan back home from the Rupaidiha market in Uttar Pradesh’s Bahraich to Banke district in Nepal. He remembers the date — April 17 — because what happened surprised him. Armed Police Force (APF) constable-rank personnel of the Nepali paramilitary force entrusted with the border patrol stopped him at the Rupaidiha crossing and asked sternly about the fan.

Thapa told them that he had carried it across the border into India, to get it repaired. The guard asked him what the fan cost. “ I told him it had cost me ₹2,200, and he asked me to pay bhansaar (customs duties, in Nepali). I asked him if he was out of his mind. Since my childhood we have been carrying all kinds of goods from here (India),” he says, adding that he had a verbal altercation with the guard. He rode off without paying, crossing the check post, to his home, just a few kilometres from the border.