Cattle smuggling from across India-Bangla border gone down:BGB

From Neelabh Srivastava Jessore (Bangladesh), Sep 20 (PTI) Cattle smuggling, whichis the "root cause" for firing incidents across the Indo-Bangla border, has dwindled to about one per cent in the pastone year after India’s clampdown on the illegal trade, topBangladeshi border guard officials said today. Commander of the Border Guard Bangladesh’s (BGB) SouthWest Region Md Khalilur Rahman told a visiting group of Indianjournalists here that cattle, especially cow, is "not beingreceived" from the Indian side and such incidents have gonedown by 99 per cent in the last one year. The Additional Director General rank officer of the BGBcommands the second largest frontier of the country (oppositeNorth 24 Parganas in West Bengal) and is the most notoriousarea between the two neighbours in terms of cattle smugglingand other criminal activities. "Cow smuggling incidents across the Indo-Bangla borderhave come down to about 1 per cent as compared to thestatistics of sometime back. To give an example, last year ina particular area we had about 11,000 cattle coming in a daybut now this time the figures are only about 200-300. "We are not getting any cattle from India now and this hasprompted us to ask our countrymen to rear our own cattle. "During the recent Eid celebrations we could see the hugedifference in cost of the cattle in our markets," Rahman saidwhen questioned by PTI at the frontier headquarters here, over200 kms from national capital Dhaka. BGB Director (Operations) of the South-West Region, MaksudAhmed said a major "irritant" in the cordial ties between thetwo border guard forces has been the killing and injury toBangladeshi people in border areas by the BSF. "Cattle smuggling is the root cause for border firing. Weare undertaking joint operations with BSF to minimise andtotally bring an end to these cases," he said. Since taking over, the Modi government had stressed oncurbing this issue of cattle with Union Home Minister RajnathSingh exhorting Border Security Force (BSF) personnel toensure a complete clampdown on cattle smuggling to Bangladesh. Rahman, however, claimed that Bangladesh now had a surplusof home-reared cattle during this Eid. The price, he said, which had shot up to Rs 80,000 to 1lakh per head after the clampdown on cow smuggling by BSF, hasnow come down to Rs 50,000-60,000, as the indigenous industrywas producing good number of cattle. The BGB commander said they have decided to cooperate withtheir counterparts on the border– the BSF — and will notallow any smuggled cows to pass through the areas under theircontrol. PTI NESNSA