Smuggling of cattle to Bangladesh must stop

Indian Home Minister Rajnath Singh yesterday asked the BSF personnel deployed along the Indo-Bangla border to put a complete halt to smuggling of cattle into Bangladesh so that people there give up eating beef.

He made the comment days after advocating a nationwide ban on cow slaughter.

“I am told prices of beef in Bangladesh have gone up by 30 percent recently due to heightened vigil by the BSF against cattle smuggling.

“You further intensify your vigil so that the cattle smuggling stops completely and price of beef in Bangladesh escalates 70 to 80 percent more so that people of Bangladesh give up eating beef,” Rajnath said while addressing members of Indian Border Security Force at a border outpost in West Bengal.

According to official statistics, around 17 lakh cattle were smuggled into Bangladesh from India last year.

On Sunday, the minister said the NDA government would try its "level best" to bring in a countrywide ban on slaughter of cows by evolving a consensus.

“Cow slaughter cannot be accepted in this country. We will make all-out efforts to ban slaughter of cows and will also try hard to have a consensus for this purpose,” Rajnath said.

He also stressed that India would like to further strengthen ties with Bangladesh.

“We have very cordial relations with Bangladesh, and we would like to further strengthen our relations with the neighbouring country,” the minister said.

Referring to frequent “attacks” on the BSF members by Bangladeshi smugglers, Rajnath asked the troops deployed in the South Bengal frontier to do their best to foil such attacks and promised that he would stand by them under all circumstances.