Guwahati, April 19: Akbar Banjara and Salman Banjara were arrested in connection with the cattle smuggling case from Meerut and non-bailable warrant was also issued against them 8 months back.
During the course of investigation in police custody, very astonishing facts were revealed regarding the smuggling of cattle from Uttar Pradesh, Hariyana, West Bengal and Assam to Bangladesh via Meghalaya and also the money involved in this illegal trade.
Moreover, there is an involvement of some fundamentalist organisations as well as the ISI of Pakistan in the illegal trade. These organisations are getting huge chunks of money which is being used for anti India campaigns.
In addition to this, there is illegal hawala transactions in the form of hundis and gold which needs to be investigated properly and thoroughly in order to find out the gamut of this whole illegal trade, money trails and money exchanging hands.
The commission of crime committed by these illegal traders have not only incurred heavy loss to the Government exchequer but have also created a breeding ground for anti national activities and anti India campaigns which is a matter of grave concern for India’s internal security.
The illegal money acquired through these illegal trades is provided for terror funding. The arrested persons also disclosed and revealed that a huge amount of this trade is also distributed to the extremist organizations of BTR namely NDFB, KLO and other militant organizations of Kokrajhar, Chirang, Baksa and some extremist organizations of Meghalaya. They also disclosed the routes followed by them for cattle smuggling and for identification of routes for cattle smuggling through the Sankosh River bordering Kokrajhar and Bhutan.
The arrested accused persons were taken along with a police party towards Jamduar side but on April 19 at about 1.15 am, the police party came under the ambush of extremists near Jamduar. They immediately got down from the vehicles, taking line position and started firing towards the extremist side. The arrested accused persons were not able to get down from the vehicle and sustained bullet injuries.
The firing between the extremist and police party lasted for about 10 to 12 minutes. When the firing stopped and after sensing no danger, the police party immediately evacuated the injured persons from the vehicle and sent them in another vehicle for treatment at Soraibil PHC.
The remaining police party started searching the nearby areas and after some time, 1 AK-47 rifle with 2 magazines and 35 rounds of live ammunitions of AK-47 rifle and 28 rounds of fired empty cases of AK-47 rifles were seized from the area and one small tree trunk which was put across the road for blocking the vehicles.
In the meantime, the injured accused persons reached the Soraibil PHC where the on duty doctor declared them to be brought dead. In the said ambush, 4 police personnel also sustained injuries and a police vehicle was damaged.
