Stop cattle smuggling to Bangladesh: Indian Home Minister Rajnath Singh

“I am told prices of beef in Bangladesh have gone up by 30 percent recently due to heightened vigil by BSF against cattle smuggling,” he told BSF troopers at Angrail border outpost in West Bengal on Thursday.

“You further intensify your watch so cattle smuggling stops completely and prices shoot up 70 to 80 percent more so that people of Bangladesh give up eating beef.”

According to official statistics, around 1.7 million cattle were smuggled to Bangladesh from India in 2014.

The home minister says his government will try its “level best” to bring in a countrywide ban on slaughter of cows by evolving a consensus.

“Cow slaughter cannot be accepted in this country. We will make all-out efforts to ban slaughter of cows and will also try hard to have a consensus for this purpose,” he had said before.

The home minister insisted that India would like to further strengthen relations with Bangladesh.

“We have very cordial relations with Bangladesh and we would like to further strengthen our relations with the neighbouring country,” Singh said.

But many Indians including former BSF chief Ashis Mitra had recommended legalising cattle exports to Bangladesh, saying India stood to gain much from it.

The BJP ministers have recently landed Prime Minister Narendra Modi in one tight spot after another by loose and controversial comments, the last being one by Giriraj Singh who said Rajiv Gandhi married Sonia Gandhi for colour of her skin and would never have married a Nigerian.

The Nigerian Ambassador has lodged a strong protest with the Indian Ministry of External Affairs, the Congress has hit back hard and Indian television channels have pulled up the BJP for racism.