The Border Security Force (BSF) guarding the border with Bangladesh have a new job, in addition to guarding our borders they also have orders to stop illegal smuggling of cattle to the neighboring country.

Recently, Jishnu Basu, RSS spokesman in West Bengal sparked fresh controversy by saying that “Killing or smuggling a cow is equivalent to raping a Hindu girl or destroying a Hindu temple”.

The biggest irony in the statement comes from the fact that India is the largest exporter of beef in the World. Also, maybe he doesn’t know that thousands of cows die every year due feeding on garbage and poisonous polythene waste and also hundreds of cows are killed in road accidents every year. I guess that makes majority of the population a rapist!

We live in a Country where issues such as ‘Rape’ and ‘Women safety’ are a big challenge to the society. We also live in a country where some people every once in a while, make shocking statements which make no sense, on topics of National importance.

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Every other night, soldiers armed with bamboo sticks and ropes have to cross paddy fields and swim across ponds to chase bovines and smugglers heading for markets in Bangladesh. So far, BSF have caught 400 Bangladeshi and Indian smugglers and seized 90000 cattle.

Two soldiers have been killed by a gang of Bangladeshi smugglers, while three dozen have been injured by the animals. Some BSF soldiers said that they could not understand why they were chasing cows. As Vivek Tyagi, a BSF commander at Ghojadanga check post said, “It is a wild chase, but not of a kind a soldier appreciates”.

While our soldiers are busy stopping the illegal smuggling of cattle, some people are busy making controversial statements on the issue.

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