The Centre’s bid to stop “recycling” of cattle along the India-Bangladesh border has handed the Border Security Force (BSF) a major bovine problem.
The BSF’s Shillong Sector border said about 50 cows with the force had died due to the absence of resources at frontier outposts in East Khasi Hills district of Meghalaya.
The forces’ Deputy Inspector-General U.K. Nayal told newspersons in Meghalaya capital Shillong that a total of 289 cattle in the custody of the BSF died within a week “due to various reasons that include illness and lack of infrastructure”.
Several cases
BSF officials along India’s 4,096 km border with Bangladesh said the Meghalaya incident was one of several such cases. They attributed the death of more than 5,000 cattle since November 2018 to a Central government order that intended to stop “recycling of cows”.
Cattle smuggling has been a major crime along the Bangladesh border with those in the illegal business trying several strategies to evade the border guards. These include snorkelling with cows tied to a raft in rivers that flow into Bangladesh and causing a stampede — to dash through the border fence — by hammering nails on the rump of the cows drawing up the rear of a herd.
Before the November 2018 order, the BSF had to hand the cattle seized from smugglers over to the Department of Customs. The cattle auctioned thereafter would invariably be bought by the same set of smugglers several times before eventually finding their way to their clients in Bangladesh.
This began to be referred to as cattle recycling.
Higher prices
“Smugglers could afford to shell out ₹10,000-15,000 more than the price at which they procured a cow because their Bangladeshi clients pay way higher. The order has prevented the Customs from disposing of the seized cattle and burdened us with the animals,” a BSF officer on the West Bengal border said on condition of anonymity.
“The only difference for the cattle that the change of rule has done is letting them die uncared for instead of being slaughtered in Bangladesh. This could have been avoided if the government gave us some funds to manage the cattle,” the officer added.
Hamstrung
Hamstrung by lack of resources to feed the cattle, the BSF entrusted the responsibility to an NGO named Dhyan Foundation. The NGO has been providing food and shelter for the cattle, but officials said the order was not properly implemented in Assam and Meghalaya.
About 2,000 seized cattle are still in the BSF’s custody in Meghalaya. Another 250 are in Assam’s Dhubri Sector manned by the force.