The Border Guard Bangladesh has dismissed Indian media reports implicating the border force in smuggling cattle across the borders as baseless and hit back at India’s Border Security Force or BSF by questioning their inactivity to curb the cattle smuggling.

“The BSF’s inactivity/lack of activity against smugglers moving cows near border areas on the Indian lands and rivers definitely raises questions,” read a BGB media statement on Sunday.

The Indian Express published a report headlined ''BSF: Border Guard Bangladesh supports cattle smuggling'' on July 13. It cited a Hindi statement signed by BSF South Bengal Frontier DIG SS Guleria on July 6, claiming that BGB is fully supporting cattle smuggling from India.

The BGB dismissed the allegation as ‘totally baseless’ and said, “The Indian smugglers are very keen to smuggle cows into Bangladesh to make more profit. This generally harms the local farms.”

The border force has adopted a strict stance to prevent cattle smuggling. They met local representatives, administration, police and representatives from society in border areas to raise public awareness, according to the press release.

The BGB statement added that the Indian Express report could be an effort to "cover up BSF’s failure to stop cattle smuggling".

The Indian Express report quoted BSF DIG Guleria as saying that “the cattle are blindfolded, and banana stems are tied to them to help them float on the Ganga, so that they can be swept across to Bangladesh.

“When they arrive in Bangladesh, there are hundreds of Bangladeshi cattle smugglers who capture these animals, using their speedboats. This task is sometimes done with the agreement of the Border Guard Bangladesh personnel,” it said.

The report went on to elaborate that, “The cattle are packed in trucks from across North India and transported to the border. When they are near the border, the smugglers try to make them run fast so that they can’t be caught.

“For this, the animals are injected with drugs or their tails are cut and pressure is applied on the wounds,” it quoted the BSF as saying.

Bangladesh has barred the import of cattle for Eid-ul-Azha sacrifices this year amid the coronavirus outbreak.

According to the Ministry of Fisheries and Livestock, Bangladesh has a total of 11.6 million cows, buffaloes, goats and sheep ready for Eid slaughtering.

Of them, 4.457 million are cows and buffaloes, while 7.1 million are goats and sheep, the ministry said in a statement on Sunday.

https://bdnews24.com/world/south-asia/2020/07/19/bgb-questions-bsf-role-dismisses-baseless-indian-reports-over-links-with-cattle-smuggling