Meghalaya villagers foil cattle smuggling attempt in South Garo Hills, expose trade racket

Village volunteers in Meghalaya's South Garo Hills district seized a Shillong-registered vehicle attempting to smuggle cattle into Bangladesh. The vehicle was halted at Jadi town, near Nangalbibra late night on June 11.
 

Upon intercepting, the vehicle - a Maruti EECO van, bearing registration no. ML05 T 3893, was found to hold as many as six adult cows inside. The vehicle was moving through the isolated highway towards the border when alert villagers intercepted it around 3 am early morning.

The cattle, lifted from Dudhnoi, made its way via Damra, Rongjeng, Nangalbibra and Jadi enroute to Baghmara-Rongara side of the border when it was stopped.

It must be noted that, in most cases, seizure of smuggled cattle is taking place due to the alertness of villagers even though there are as many as five police stations and multiple checkpoints along the highway, beginning from Rongjeng and all the way to Baghmara and Rongara.

“This is just the tip of the ice-berg. Snuggling of cattle is taking place late in the night, almost every week. Just recently, two Mahindra pick up vehicles with cattle passed through our region in the dead of night. We tried to stop them but they sped away,” says Greneth Sangma, former student leader and social activist from the region.

It is worth mentioning that South Garo Hills has gained notoriety for alleged smuggling rackets- particularly the smuggling of thousands of bags of sugar, the illegal import of Burmese arecanut and vehicle-motorcycle theft.