The Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB) today (19 July 2020) lodged a protest on a news article carried on an Indian newspaper last week on ‘BGB’s support for cattle smuggling from the neighboring India’ is totally ‘baseless’.
Quoting BSF’s South Bengal Frontier DIG SS Guleria’s statement issued on July 6, the news article also said, “The BSF is claiming that the BGB is giving full support to the cattle smuggling from India”, the Bangladeshi border watchdog termed the press statement totally ‘false and baseless’, according to a BGB here today.
Reiterating the BGB’s position on the Indian cattle smuggling, the BGB said that they have taken very tough position for preventing cattle smuggling from India in line with the government policy to protect the interest of the local livestock farmers, adding that “strict patrol and vigilance has been intensified by the BGB at night comprising with the representatives from local administrations, police, local representative, elite people and cross section people at the border area, it said.
The BGB said : “ It creates undoubtedly a lot of queries about the inactivity of the BSF behind amassing huge cattle on the Indian soil bordering Bangladesh by the Indian cattle smugglers and cattle smuggling across the river.”
Actually the news may be published on the Indian mass media due to hiding the failure of the BSF on preventing cattle smuggling from India, said the Bangladeshi paramilitary force who is primarily responsible for defending 4,427kms border area of Bangladesh.
The Indian smugglers are being very much enthusiastic to smuggle cattle into Bangladesh for making an exorbitant profit, but the Indian cattle smuggling incurs huge loss for the local farmers, said the BGB release.
The news titled “BSF: Border Guard Bangladesh supports cattle smuggling” published in the Indian Express on July 13, said that the cattle smuggling has increased on the Bangladesh-India border areas on the occasion of the Eid-ul Azha scheduled at the end of July.
About the import of the sacrificial animal during the Eid, the BGB said, however, Fisheries and Livestock Minister SM Rezaul Karim mentioned that the country has enough stock of sacrificial animals with an estimate of nearly 1.19 crore, so meeting the country’s will demand of sacrificial animals from the local cattle by reducing foreign cattle import dependency.
Criticizing the press statement made by BSF’s DIG SS Guleria, the BGB said his statement which was written in Hindi is insulting to the holy Eid-ul Azha, the greatest religious festival for the Muslims and the statement has also hurt the sentiment of the Muslims community as a whole.
The animals are being reared with due care, but those are being slaughtered in the name of the Eid-ul Azha which actually means to carry out repression on it, said SS Guleria in his statement.