MUMBAI: Acting on a tip off, the Border Security Force (BSF) and preventive and intelligence wing of the Customs department jointly apprehended four persons, seized 98 cattle heads and four lorries in which domestic cattle were being ferried.
The joint operation was conducted on Tuesday midnight at Jatiakali under New Jalpaiguri (NJP) police outpost in Siliguri.
According to officials of the BSF, the seized cattle heads were illegally being transported without any valid documentation.
They officials also claimed that nearly a hundred cattle heads were being ferried to be smuggled through the unfenced border areas in the northeast, to cater to the demand of cattle heads in view of Eid festival in Bangladesh.
The BSF claimed that the seized cattle are worth Rs.57 lakh. BSF intelligence said that the owners of the smuggled cattle were identified as Md Nousad, resident of Chaupokharia in Bagdogra and Salam Hinari, resident of Sonapur under Chopra police station in North Dinajpur district. Both are suspected to be kingpins of a cattle smuggling racket, the BSF said.
Basudeb Mandal, 28, resident of Jalpaiguri district, Siddique Ali, 42, resident of Dhubri in Assam, Md Aminul, 15, resident of Dhubri in Assam, and Md Ali, 23, resident of Bagdogra in Siliguri were apprehended in the operation.
Sector commander, Brig Akhil Dixit, DIG of BSF’s sector headquarters in Siliguri, has instructed to check cattle smuggling and nab cattle smugglers.
Appreciating the joint operation, Dixit said that the drive will continue till the time trans-border cattle smuggling is brought to the lowest possible level.
