Silchar, June 24: The BSF has expressed concern at the unabated cross-border smuggling of cattle in large numbers from Assam, Tripura and West Bengal to neighbouring Bangladesh.

The BSF headquarters in New Delhi has recently submitted field reports to the Union home ministry.

According to a senior official of the BSF in the Northeast, the bulk of the meat and hide of cows, smuggled out from this country across the border, also find their way in a packaged form to West Asia. Beef and the hide of cows are extremely popular in those countries.

Piecing together the field reports filed by its various intelligence units posted along the Indo-Bangladesh border, the BSF has estimated that in the last calendar year alone, as many as 2.20 crore cattle were smuggled out across the border to Bangladesh.

A spurt in smuggling of cattle across the almost porous border was observed during any religious festival of Muslims, particularly during Id.

The report added that the BSF has identified 65 routes along the 4,098-km Indo-Bangladesh border for smuggling cattle under the cover of darkness. Of these 65 routes, six are in Assam.

In this state the routes are divided evenly between Dhubri and Karimganj districts.

West Bengal allegedly has 48 routes, the maximum number of such pathways for smuggling cattle, the report stated. The report added that 64,000 heads of cattle were impounded by the BSF along the Indo-Bangladesh border in 2005.

The official said as the BSF could not maintain any well regulated pens for cattle seized along the border areas, there is no other alternative but to periodically sell them in auctions. According to him, the cows sold at the various auctions are then picked up by touts of the smugglers’ cartels.

A source said cattle smuggling is a cash-spinning business. The average price of a local cattle-head is between Rs 2,500 and Rs 4,000. But the price of each domesticated animal shoots upto Taka 8,000 on an average once the cattle reaches Bangladesh.