New Delhi, July 21
A sudden rise in "floating cattle" in West Bengal meant for smuggling across the Bangladesh border has alarmed the BSF which has deployed additional troops, motor boats and surveillance gadgets to curb the crime, officials said today.
'Hundreds of cattle are being smuggled through the rivers which are in spate along this border. We are increasingly intercepting cattle that are being cruelly tied to banana trunks and set afloat in the stream so that they can be collected across the border in Bangladesh by smugglers," a senior official said.
Over 1,200 cows and buffaloes have been seized in just over a week by the force. The cost per cattle head has gone up to Rs 1.4 lakh, from the earlier Rs 80,000, in anticipation of the Bakr Id festivities in August. The seizure is only one-third of what is being actually smuggled and, hence, the BSF has ordered deployment of additional troops, motor boats and hand-held thermal imagers to mount vigil and check the menace of cattle smuggling that is rearing its head again, officials said.
They said the sudden spike in the smuggling of cattle is leading to an increasing number of clashes between the border guards and smugglers but the force wasl using non-lethal weapons like pump action guns to thwart smugglers and save their own lives in case of attacks. At least a dozen Border Security Force personnel have been injured in these skirmishes in the last few weeks with one trooper losing his hand after smugglers lobbed crude bombs in the middle of night at the Angrail post in North 24 Parganas.
The troops have been asked to maintain an "aggressive posture" and ensure that the crime of cattle smuggling is effectively checked, a senior official in the south Bengal frontier of the force said.
Additional thermal imagers, which detect human and cattle movement through body heat signatures in pitch dark, have been sent to the BSF posts in Malda, Murshidabad, Nadia and North 24 Parganas to check the crime. — PTI
Modus operandi
- Cattle dropped in large numbers into the river in the night in villages on the banks of the Ganga
- Cruelly tied to banana trunks and set afloat to be collected across the border by B’desh smugglers
- Cost per cattle head up to Rs 1.4 lakh from the earlier Rs 80,000 in anticipation of the Bakrid
from The Tribune https://ift.tt/2GkkdfW
via Today’s News Headlines
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