Smuggling of Cows

It emerges from a news item aired by the electronic media that in spite of much hullabaloo over the smuggling of cows to Bangladesh, the smuggling goes on unabated with the tacit blessings of the Assam Police. It further transpires from the news that the cow smuggling syndicate earns Rs 49 lakh per day and that the lion’s share goes to some of the top officials of the Assam Police. Another report of a highly circulated vernacular daily suggests that an amount of Rs 42 crore is earned per month in the State from the cow smuggling syndicate and that the syndicate is run by some people from Bihar and Uttar Pradesh who, in league with their accomplices in Assam, have been carrying out the smuggling of cows to Bangladesh.

The matter of smuggling of cows from Meghalaya has come to such a pass that an acute scarcity of beef in the State has taken place. The smugglers use Guwahati as their corridor, and the Assam Police can do pretty little to check the smuggling for obvious reasons except for intercepting one or two trucks from time to time here and there, which is nothing but eyewash. Needless to add, the Government of India is losing a substantial amount of foreign exchange as a result of such smuggling. It seems that a parallel government is being run by the perpetrators of such syndicates, be it coal, supaari or cows, and the Government of Assam is passive to the burning issue.

Ashok Bordoloi,

Dibrugarh.