Allow cattle export to Bangladesh: BSF

Border Security Force on Friday said smuggling of cattle from India to Bangladesh has emerged as the "biggest challenge" for the force and favoured legitimisation of bovine trade to check the menace.

It was impossible to check cattle smuggling given the nature of the terrain along the 4096-km porous Indo-Bangla border and the only possible solution was to allow export of cattle, BSF Director General A K Mitra said.

"Cattle smuggling is a major problem. It is now the biggest challenge for us as it leads to corruption among our men" and rise in criminal activities, he told reporters at the BSF headquarters in New Delhi.

He said the people who are smuggling captured cattle to Bangladesh are just couriers and those that finance the trade never come into the picture.

"I can think of only one solution, why not allow cattle export," he added.

Bangladesh is a beef-eating country and its own resources were not able to meet the requirements, encouraging cattle smuggling from India.

On infiltration along the Indo-Bangla border, Mitra said, "It has come down substantially", but added that it was not possible to seal the borders completely because of the peculiar nature of the terrain.

"I can't say nobody is coming, but the number has come down. We have strengthened patrolling. All the battalions that were withdrawn from Jammu and Kashmir have been deployed at the Indo-Bangla border," he added.

Six-nine battalions of BSF (around 8,600 personnel) are guarding the borders at present and the paramilitary force has also stepped up surveillance to check infiltration, he added.