Racket of cattle smuggling in Bengal – CBI arrests leader of Trinamool Congress

CBI arrests a Trinamool Congress leader of Birbhum district in Bengal. He is Anubrata Mondal and is suspected of having links to a cattle smuggling racket. It seems the nexus includes senior BSF officers, other politicians and officials of the local administration. The state Criminal Investigation Department CID has already nabbed a person on charges of coal smuggling. That was on July 22 and investigation revealed his links to the cattle smuggling racket. This smuggling operation was in and around Basirhat in North 24 Parganas district. He had an accomplice who operated in other districts of Malda and Murshidabad. The money involved in cattle smuggling was in the range of Rs 1,500-2,000 crore and persons at various levels received pay offs. The list included politicians, police, administration and BSF officers. Cattle smuggling racket that TMC's Anubrata Mondal was involved in had a deep nexus.

The Border Security Force BSF had informed the Union Home Ministry about the extent of smuggling on the India-Bangladesh border. The BSF also shared a list of officers suspected to be involved in the racket. The CBI and ED arrested two of them in January 2018 and April 2022. Court martial proceedings are also initiated against two other BSF officers since April 2019. During interrogation, the name of a minister’s son, who is an MLA in UP surfaced. He is believed to be a beneficiary of the proceeds of cattle smuggling. As an official of the BSF admitted - “The illegal enterprise was most rampant between 2014 and 2019 when the politician-BSF-police nexus made windfall gains.”

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Difficult to remove stray cattle from the streets of Agra

There are a few things that are interwoven into the fabrics of Indian society and, one of these is the menace of stray cattle roaming on the streets. Such sights are common in the city of Agra, famous for the Taj Mahal and, despite the Uttar Pradesh government ordering the local administration to alleviate such nuisance, nothing appears to have been done.
Based on a directive from UP chief secretary earlier this year, the Agra administration had held a meeting with cattle owners and warned them of punitive measures, if found guilty. The administration had given themselves time till June 10- unfortunately, the deadline has passed and no palpable changes are visible.
This has been reported in timesofindia.indiatimes.com dated 25 June 2016.

Cattle are taken for bathing in the Yamuna or they stroll at Fatehabad Road, Shilpgram, Mall Road, M G Road or places near Taj Mahal. The fact is that the local administration has failed to control the civic problem. The newly-appointed additional district magistrate has assured that the administration is working to make Agra free of strays.
As a part of this drive, all stray cattle in the city will be identified and marked. Once tat is done, they will be relocated outside the city. For that, an area is being located where such cattle will be transported. There is no time scale indicated but people are working "tirelessly" to get rid of the problem.
Regarding bathing of buffaloes and other cattle in the Yamuna, administration officers had promised to barricade the river, but that has yet to happen.


Image courtesy wikimediacommons.org

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