Cattle Smuggling, West Bengal: CBI searches at Trinamool Congress youth leader's 2 premises

Cattle smuggling case

NEW DELHI/KOLKATA: The CBI on Thursday carried out searches at two Kolkata premises linked with Trinamool Congress' youth wing leader Vinay Mishra in a cattle smuggling case and also issued a lookout notice for him, sources said. The Central Bureau of Investigation has been on a massive search spree for the last few weeks in the eastern state in connection with the cross-border cattle smuggling and illegal coal mining cases.

According to a CBI source in Delhi, TMC Youth Congress General Secretary Mishra's name had cropped up on a number of occasions in the course of investigations in the cattle smuggling case.

CBI officials conducted raids at Mishra's residences at Rashbihari, Chetla and Lake Town areas in Kolkata. Mishra is known to be a close aide of Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee's nephew and Trinamool's Lok Sabha MP from Diamond Harbour Abhishek Banerjee.

The source also said that following issuance of the lookout circular against the TMC leader, all airports in the state have been alerted for the "untraceable" politician. It is the first time that a TMC leader has directly been named in this case.

On September 21, the CBI had filed a case of cattle smuggling against Mohammad Enamul Haque, former Border Security Force officer Satish Kumar, three private individuals and unknown public servants for their alleged involvement in the illegal cattle trade on the India-Bangladesh border in West Bengal.

Kumar was arrested on November 17 and discharged from service. He was posted in Chhattisgarh's Raipur at the time of the registration of the case.

The CBI has also named Aranul SK, Mohammad Golam Mustafa, and other unknown persons on charges of misconduct by public servants in the FIR after its Preliminary Enquiry revealed the involvement of officers posted on the India-Bangladesh border in the illegal trade.

After registering the case, the CBI carried out searches at 15 locations in Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Chhattisgarh, and Punjab on September 23.

The CBI had arrested Haque from New Delhi on November 6. According to the CBI FIR, cattle were taken from India to Bangladesh after paying illegal gratification to BSF personnel manning the International Border.

Kumar, during his posting in West Bengal between December 2015 and April 2017, allegedly seized over 20,000 cows before they could be transported to Bangladesh, but the vehicles involved were not seized, the FIR alleged.

The FIR said that the BSF officer in alleged connivance with Customs officials and smugglers auctioned the seized cattle within 24 hours. "The smugglers named in the case paid money to the accused officials. Customs officials also used to take bribe of 10 per cent of the auction price from successful bidders named in the case," the FIR added.

"Bhuvan Bhaskar, son of the BSF officer, was employed in Haque Industries Pvt Ltd, a company promoted by Haque. Bhuvan was paid Rs 30,000 to Rs 40,000 salary per month between May 2017 and December 2017, which reflects his links with the cattle smuggling racket," the CBI said in its FIR. (IANS)

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