CATTLE RUSTLING, BENGAL STYLE

Smuggling of cattle across the border into Bangladesh has assumed industrial proportions in West Bengal. Central agencies are now targeting the alleged political kingpins of the business

- Romita Datta

THE SPIRIT OF CAMARADERIE THAT WAS ON DISPLAY when Bangladesh prime minister Sheikh Hasina was on a state visit to India from September 5-8, resulting in no less than seven bilateral agreements, threatens to come undone over the issue of illegal smuggling of cattle across the porous borders into Bangladesh. The trade has taken on an industrial scale in recent years; its farthest branches allegedly inflate the ruling party’s coffers, by way of connivance with politicians, administrative officials and officers of the Border Security Force (BSF). And its roots reach out to all corners of the districts of Malda, Birbhum and Murshidabad, involving tens of thousands of people. The value of the operation— hundreds of crores annually—dwarfs that other storm to have hit Bengal this season: the alleged teachers’ recruitment scandal. Details have been dribbling out ever since the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) started probing the matter in September 2020. Now, more is being revealed with the arrest of the man alleged to be the political patron-in-chief of cattle smuggling: Anubrata Mondal, the Birbhum strongman of the Trinamool Congress, who had been evading central agencies for months. The shock of the CBI crackdown led to a two-week lull at the Sukhbazar poshu haat (animal market) at Ilambazar—Mondal’s home turf—the state’s largest livestock market in Birbhum district. But when india today visited the area recently, it was again abuzz with activity.