From our Correspondent
DIGBOI, Dec 24: Indifferent to all the existing provisions governing cattle trade across the State, the traders trading in cattle at the Thursday weekly market in a border location of Bordumsa in Tinsukia district of Upper Assam, are reportedly carrying on the business and transporting the consignment illegally through various safe passages, thus escaping any legal hurdles on the way.
According to sources, the businessmen from various locations of the State, including Tinsukia district, purchase cattle in the said market in the me of slaughtering, and illegally dispatch the same on accumulation from different loading and unloading points on a specific time while fooling the highway patrolling agencies and other possible legal impediments.
Talking to The Sentinel, Mugdha Jyoti Mahanta, the Superintendent of Police of Tinsukia, expressed concern over the unhealthy trend and admitted that a large of cattle smugglers were operating in the area. “Despite our ka check, the vehicles laden with cattle infringing the existing provisions, escape our legal grip,” he said.
According to Mahanta, 300 cattle are purchased every week from the Thursday market, out of which only 80 cattle are transported legally with valid documents while 220 purchased in the me of slaughtering or some other ceremonial affairs are gathered at a chosen destition and transported illegally through Digboi-Duliajan Road to the destition without being caught
or detected on the highway.
According to sources, hundreds of cattle sold in the market are taken on foot and following a short and safe way, sometimes reach Jagun and are again lifted to Margherita from where they are carried illegally to various destitions. The illegal traders have employed people in various pockets of Bordumsa permanently to promote their business so that a large number of cattle are collected on the market day and the affair goes on almost daily.
However, based on local allegations centering round the act of smuggling the cattle in the border area of Bordumsa by the businessmen across the State, The Sentinel contacted Sowkhatul Islam Bora, the proprietor of M/s Bora Livestock, who trades in cattle in Bordumsa area legally. According to Bora, who has been an officially certified vendor carrying on the said trade in the area, he has five vehicles engaged in transporting the cattle from Bordumsa to Dibrugarh via Makum and Tinsukia. Claiming of procuring all clearance and possessing valid documents, including Gaonbura certificate, transaction papers, Panchayat verification and fitness documents issued byDistrict Veteriry Doctor, Bora said that he carries not more than 12 cattle per vehicle, while following all mandatory provisions of required space for the livestock and fodder. “”My ‘My business is clean and legal which can be challenged in the court of law,”added Bora
when asked about the legal validity of his trade.
Meanwhile, Ranjan Chakraborty, the Deputy Commissioner of Tinsukia, during
interaction with The Sentinel this evening, said that trading of cattle was not illegal. With procurement of valid documents, including the Panchayat certification of cattle, NOC from veteriry doctor and without contravening to the existing norms of ‘cruelty to animals’, livestock can be traded and transported.
Nevertheless, the selling and buying of cattle, particularly the milch cow, that too in such a large number in and around Bordumsa, has been a matter of concern for those sections of people who worship the animal, beside the general people depending on them for milk - an essential daily edible that might cease soon if the business goes on unregulated and unchecked as the present trend exhibits.