06-14-2007, 05:02 PM
<b>BSF fails to check cattle smuggling on Bangla border</b>
http://in.news.yahoo.com/070613/48/6gz0p.html
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->By IE
Thursday June 14, 02:17 AM
<b>Smuggling of cattle from the Indian side to Bangladesh has become a flourishing activity, </b>and this despite the presence of armed Border Security Force (BSF) personnel along the entire 4096-km border that the two countries share. According to BSF figures, in the first five months of the year, BSF has seized cattle worth over Rs 3.5 crore from being smuggled in the <b>Assam-Meghalaya sector.</b>
On June 1, BSF jawans seized 55 cattle heads from two groups of smugglers in the Mankachar belt in the Dhubri sector of western Assam. The total value of the animals seized was worked out to be around Rs 8.5 lakh. Since January, the total number of cattle heads seized in the Assam-Meghalaya sector alone has been 2,289. In <b>West Bengal,</b> the value of cattle seized was about Rs 1.2 lakh last year.
While a sizeable portion of the border in the Assam sector is still by and large unfenced, smugglers have become bold and attack BSF jawans who try to stop them from crossing. <b>It was in Mankachar in the Dhubri sector of western Assam that Bangladeshis butchered 17 BSF jawans. </b>
"While a special ambush party of the Kushnimara border outpost (BOP) challenged the smugglers - numbering about 20 to 25 - to stop, they attempted to attack our men with sharp weapons, forcing the BSF ambush commander to open fire," a BSF official at the Assam-Meghalaya sector headquarters in Shillong said.
BSF officials also said that the emergence of a number of cattle haats along the Indo-Bangladesh border in the Assam-Meghalaya sector has contributed directly to cattle smuggling. "<b>An overwhelming percentage of cattle that are traded in these haats are much beyond the local requirement of agriculture and milching, and the majority of these cattle are smuggled into Bangladesh</b>," the BSF official said.
P K Mishra, BSF Inspector-General for Assam and Meghalaya said cattle smuggling was particularly rampant in the Assam portions of the border. This was mainly due to the connivance of criminals on both sides of the border, he added.
Mishra said <b>cattle are transported from Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh to these haats</b>, following which smugglers herd them to the border villages and at an opportune time smuggle them out to Bangladesh. Whatever the BSF succeeds in preventing is only a small portion, he added.
While there is no legal bar in transporting cattle from other parts of the country, the BSF has been pressing for setting up officially and legally approved haats on the border so that export of cattle could be made legal and taxable.
Officials of the Assam Government too are of the opinion that export of cattle be made legal along the Indo-Bangla border. "We discussed the issue at the district-level coordination committee metings with the BSF and the Army. There are also incidents of cattle thefts," said Gautam Ganguly, Deputy Commissioner of Cachar. "The border needs to be properly fenced to stop this menace," said PS Mahanta, SP, Dhubri.
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http://in.news.yahoo.com/070613/48/6gz0p.html
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->By IE
Thursday June 14, 02:17 AM
<b>Smuggling of cattle from the Indian side to Bangladesh has become a flourishing activity, </b>and this despite the presence of armed Border Security Force (BSF) personnel along the entire 4096-km border that the two countries share. According to BSF figures, in the first five months of the year, BSF has seized cattle worth over Rs 3.5 crore from being smuggled in the <b>Assam-Meghalaya sector.</b>
On June 1, BSF jawans seized 55 cattle heads from two groups of smugglers in the Mankachar belt in the Dhubri sector of western Assam. The total value of the animals seized was worked out to be around Rs 8.5 lakh. Since January, the total number of cattle heads seized in the Assam-Meghalaya sector alone has been 2,289. In <b>West Bengal,</b> the value of cattle seized was about Rs 1.2 lakh last year.
While a sizeable portion of the border in the Assam sector is still by and large unfenced, smugglers have become bold and attack BSF jawans who try to stop them from crossing. <b>It was in Mankachar in the Dhubri sector of western Assam that Bangladeshis butchered 17 BSF jawans. </b>
"While a special ambush party of the Kushnimara border outpost (BOP) challenged the smugglers - numbering about 20 to 25 - to stop, they attempted to attack our men with sharp weapons, forcing the BSF ambush commander to open fire," a BSF official at the Assam-Meghalaya sector headquarters in Shillong said.
BSF officials also said that the emergence of a number of cattle haats along the Indo-Bangladesh border in the Assam-Meghalaya sector has contributed directly to cattle smuggling. "<b>An overwhelming percentage of cattle that are traded in these haats are much beyond the local requirement of agriculture and milching, and the majority of these cattle are smuggled into Bangladesh</b>," the BSF official said.
P K Mishra, BSF Inspector-General for Assam and Meghalaya said cattle smuggling was particularly rampant in the Assam portions of the border. This was mainly due to the connivance of criminals on both sides of the border, he added.
Mishra said <b>cattle are transported from Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh to these haats</b>, following which smugglers herd them to the border villages and at an opportune time smuggle them out to Bangladesh. Whatever the BSF succeeds in preventing is only a small portion, he added.
While there is no legal bar in transporting cattle from other parts of the country, the BSF has been pressing for setting up officially and legally approved haats on the border so that export of cattle could be made legal and taxable.
Officials of the Assam Government too are of the opinion that export of cattle be made legal along the Indo-Bangla border. "We discussed the issue at the district-level coordination committee metings with the BSF and the Army. There are also incidents of cattle thefts," said Gautam Ganguly, Deputy Commissioner of Cachar. "The border needs to be properly fenced to stop this menace," said PS Mahanta, SP, Dhubri.
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