Shillong: No beef on Monday in Eastern Meghalaya because butchers have a beef with smugglers ! The Butchers’ associations in Meghalaya’s eastern region stopped selling beef in protest against the rampant smuggling of cattle to Bangladesh.

What’s at steak?

Though the lean beef-selling period will continue till February 3, butchers will slaughter at least 74 cattle that were auctioned by the customs to them on January 21. The price of the meat would be between Rs 200 and Rs 240 for a kg.

At Iewduh (Bara Bazaar), the oldest and the largest traditional market and the biggest meat market here, butchers, who are also members of the Khasi Jaintia Butchers Welfare Association (KJBWA), did not sell beef today as part of the protest.

The otherwised busy meat market only sold pork for the day.

Speaking to reporters, KJBWA vice-president Generous Warlarpih said that butchers from all over Khasi and Jaintia hills would not sell beef or purchase cattle in the coming weeks from the market along the Meghalaya-Assam border at Khanapara. The butchers have demanded that the state government put a stop to illegal smuggling of cattle to Bangladesh.

The association members said that BSF personnel guarding the Indo-Bangla border had managed to seize a number of trucks smuggling cattle to Bangladesh.

“In the past two weeks, the state police had also seized at least 126 heads of cattle from Pynursla area meant to be smuggled through the border to Bangladesh,” they said.

Informing that the butchers’ association had managed to buy 74 cattle auctioned by the customs at Pynursla police station recently, they, however, wondered why they were not informed about the auction of another 52 seized cattle at Mawngap police outpost.

They said that illegal traders from Bangladesh have links with those from Assam and Meghalaya, which allows the illegal trade to thrive, “The price of cattle keeps on increasing in the cattle market at Khanapara due to such illegal activities. The smuggling rate is between Rs 65 to Rs 70 thousand for a pair of cattle, and a pair of healthy cattle may cost Rs 1 lakh. This has become very difficult for us to manage, because it is not easy for us to sell the meat at a high price to the customers.”

The butchers said that they could bring in only 800-850 cattle a week, though the demand is around 1,200 cattle.

“We are losing a profit of Rs 40,000 to Rs 50,000 a week. Due to such smuggling, some of the members of our association have now stopped selling beef, and have opted selling pork,” Warlarpih said.

The butchers’ association also said nearly 17-20 cattle used to be loaded in a truck and in a day, around 20 trucks ferried the cattle for smuggling to Bangladesh via the international border.

“We came to know that the smugglers pay a ferrying charge of Rs 8,000 or Rs 10,000 per truck and a person who herds the cattle till the border charges at least Rs 600 per cattle,” they said.

Asking the Meghalaya government to take serious measures to curb the menace, the association also expressed dismay over the government’s failure to prevent such illegal activities.

“From our association, we have issued a transit pass in order to identify the genuine truck ferrying the cattle. This is one of the measures we have taken to know the destination of the truck ferrying the cattle from Khanapara, but the government does not recognise this pass,” the association said.

They threatened to intensify their agitation if the government failed to address the problem. Lauding the state police and the BSF, the association also urged the BSF to maintain extra vigil along the international border.

  beef, Meghalaya