NEW DELHI: In an apparent snub of home minister Rajnath Singh’s order to the BSF to completely halt cattle smuggling to Bangladesh to starve it of beef, the Supreme Court asked how the BSF would stop cattle smuggling when there were not enough forces to stop infiltration of terrorists.
The observation came from a bench of Justices J S Khehar and S A Bobde when senior advocate Soli J Sorabjee argued for an NGO seeking a direction from the court to the Centre for formulating and implementing a comprehensive policy framework to completely stop cattle smuggling to Bangladesh.
The NGO ‘Akhil Bharat Krishi Goseva Sangh’, through advocate Manish Singhvi, said, “There is rampant smuggling of live cattle across the border to Bangladesh, which has led to depletion of cattle wealth in India and has consequently impacted the nutrition resource of Indians, especially children.”
Drawing data from the 18th and 19th Livestock Census figures, the NGO said the cattle population in India in 1961 was 388 per thousand persons and it had declined to 175 per thousand persons in 2003, a reduction of 55%. Similarly, the number of buffaloes had come down from 113 per thousand persons in 1961 to 90 per thousand in 2003, a 20% decline.
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