NEW DELHI: Trinamool Congress (TMC) strongman from West Bengal’s Birbhum district, Anubrata Mondal, arrested by the CBI in connection with the cattle smuggling racket in the state, was part of a wider nexus involving senior BSF officers, other politicians and local administration officials.
Intelligence Bureau and BSF officials revealed that long before Mondal’s arrest, the West Bengal Criminal Investigation Department (CID) moved swiftly to nab Abdul Barik Biswas on alleged coal smuggling charges on July 22 to “deflect” his deeper involvement in cattle smuggling.
While Barik’s cattle smuggling operations centred around Basirhat in North 24 Parganas district, his “lieutenant” Enamul Huq worked the racket in Madla and Murshidabad.
Huq, who was arrested by the CBI, first in 2018 and then in 2020 before he got bail on both counts, was rearrested by the ED in February.
Biswas’ “net worth” from cattle smuggling, sources said, was Rs 1,500-2,000 crore. He would pay off politicians, police, administration and BSF officers, especially during 2014-2019. “Barik would directly coordinate all operations with BSF officers and attend meetings with SPs and DMs,” an officer said.
BSF’s intelligence wing, the G branch, wrote several letters, to the Union Home Ministry (which was then under Rajnath Singh), informing them of the scale of cattle smuggling on the India-Bangladesh border, and shared a list of officers, including at least three DGPs, two additional DGPs, and three IGs, who were “deeply” involved.
Two commandants – Jibu D Mathew and Satish Kumar – were then arrested by the CBI and ED in January 2018 and April 2022, respectively.
Court martial proceedings are on against two other BSF officers – Kumar Sanjay Jha, a commandant, and Sanjay Kumar, a deputy commandant – since April 2019.
During his interrogation, Mathew had revealed the name of a BJP minister’s son, who is an MLA in UP, for being a beneficiary of the proceeds of cattle smuggling.
“The illegal enterprise was most rampant between 2014 and 2019 when the politician-BSF-police nexus made windfall gains,” a BSF official said.