CUTTACK: Union minister Maneka Gandhi on Tuesday lambasted the Odisha government for doing nothing to check illegal cattle smuggling in the state.The union minister for women and child development department and a known animal activist, Maneka said “Odisha has become the biggest cattle smuggling state. Every night thousands of cows are smuggled to Andhra Pradesh and West Bengal and from there to Bangladesh, but nobody in Odisha takes a note of it,”.“Again and again the Odisha government has been asked to stop illegal cattle trade but they have been doing absolutely nothing on the issue. The government is not even serious to tell its police to stop it, because half of the illegal cattle trade is allowed to happen by the police themselves,” said Gandhi, who was in Cuttack to attend a national conference on “Animal and Environmental Welfare” at the National Law University, Odisha.She also accused the police of conniving with cow traders. “The police knows it all as of how the trade takes place and can stop it if they want to,” said the union minister.Citing a report given to the union home ministry in 2008 by a senior cop of Uttar Pradesh, Gandhi in her keynote address in the conference said that the money generated from illegal cattle trade is used to fund the militancy and maoist operations in the country. “According to the police report submitted to the home ministry, the money generated from illegal cow trade is going towards insurgency, guns and terrorism. The cattle smuggling is a threat to the entire country,” said Gandhi. She further added, “As the money earned from illegal cow trade is going into terrorism and making our life unsafe, it is all the more important for us to save our cows,”.The animal activists working for the betterment of cows in the state have also seconded the opinion of Gandhi. “ I am glad that Maneka Gandhi raised the issue today. What we have been saying for years, she told it today. The Odisha government is not taking any initiative at all to check the cattle trade which is a serious issue,” said Purna Chandra Rout, who works for cows.

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