Express News Service
NEW DELHI: Cattle-smuggling rackets along India’s eastern borders, which were active in the south and north Bengal sectors between 2011 and 2019, have ‘shifted base’ to parts of Assam, Meghalaya and Tripura over the last three years.
While BSF sources in Delhi and Bengal expressed “satisfaction” over the status of cattle smuggling in Bengal, the “profitable enterprise” in the three northeastern states will form one of the core issues that Union Home Minister Amit Shah will be briefed on during his two-day visit to inaugurate a new BOP (border outpost) in Bengal.
BSF reports from the Bengal and Assam-Meghalaya-Tripura sectors indicate that the “efficient” cattle smuggling networks prevalent in “cattle-originating” states in northern, central and western India likely effected the shift when “business dwindled” in West Bengal due to effective “local” measures by the central border guarding force.
“The networks in states such as UP, Madhya Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh, Jharkhand, Haryana, Bihar, Uttarakhand and, principally, Bengal have simply activated the resources in the three northeastern states,” a senior BSF officer in Delhi said. This was a direct consequence of the arrest of a BSF commandant Jiju Mathew and administrative action against other senior BSF officers, including two inspectors-general and an additional IGs, in 2019 when they were investigated for their nexus with cattle smuggling rings.
Jowai in Meghalaya and Sitai and Sitalkuchi in Bengal’s Coochbehar (technically in the BSF’s Assam frontier), are the points from where cattle in large numbers are pushed into Bangladesh. In Jowai, for instance, a truck-full of cattle carries a “price tag” of Rs 5.25 lakh, a BSF officer said.
Cattle seizure data related to the BSF’s eastern (Bengal) sector shows a downward trend. However, according to a BSF report for the Jowai sector in Meghalaya, in February 2022, 550 cattle heads crossed into Bangladesh, followed in March 2022 by 970, 1,275 in April 2022 and 77 upto May 4 this year.
Likewise in Dhubri in Assam, 75, 125 and 161 pieces of cattle were smuggled into Bangladesh by rustlers in February, March and April of 2022, respectively. Cattle smuggling also went up in Tripura. Expanding the BSF’s jurisdictional operating area depth in the border states to 50 km depth, which was previously 15 km, also contributed significantly to curb cattle smuggling.
