Demonetisation hits border cattle smuggling

Guwahati: There has been sharp decline in seizure of such cattle by the Border Security Force personnel post demonetization of Rs 500 and Rs 1000 currency notes giving an impression that demonetization has seriously affected cattle smuggling across the border.
A BSF source in Guwahati informed that incidents of cattle smuggling across the India-Bangladesh border in Dhubri sector in Assam, Coochbehar and Falakata sectors in north Bengal as well as Dawki area in Meghalaya had come down drastically after Government of India had effected demonetization.
The pointed out that illegal trans-border transaction related to cattle smuggling was carried out in the hawala chain that has been hit by cash crunch because of demonetization. He explained that cattle are smuggled from India to Bangladesh where it is in high demand.
The payment for the smuggled cattle is made by Bangladeshi buyers to Indian smugglers in India through Hawala transaction.
“There were recent cases where BSF personnel seized up to 480 cattle in one night from smugglers thereby prevent the animal from being smuggled into Bangladesh. Cattle smugg-ling has been a major headache for BSF men guarding the border. However, post demoneti-zation, there has been very few incidents of cattle seizure  by the BSF men,” the BSF official said.