Tension prevails at Alwar’s anti-cow smuggling posts
ALWAR: Evening is falling in western Rajasthan’s Alwar and the roads are getting deserted. Just a few kilometers from the Haryana border, this is a crime-prone zone that leads to Mewat, infamous for highway looters and criminal gangs.
Some 15km off the highway near Alwar’s Jairoli village is a gau-raksha chowki – an anti-cow smuggling outpost – set up in 2014 to check the illegal transportation of bovine animals.
The stretch of road is pitch dark and mostly deserted with fields on both sides.
At 12.30am on Tuesday, there is nobody outside the outpost. Two rooms are locked and the third appears to be bolted from the inside. Even after repeated knocks and calls, the door doesn’t open. There is a motorcycle without number plates, clothes hanging on a rope, a hookah, and some dung cakes lying outside.
“It must be the veterinary doctor sleeping in that room. As for me, I was out on round as I had received a tip-off about some cows being smuggled,” says Gajraj Singh, head constable at Tijara police station, who was posted at the outpost that night.
Around 30km away, the outpost at Amlaki in the district’s industrial Bhiwadi area is mobile — a police van.
Two Rajasthan Armed Constabulary (RAC) personnel come out of the van flashing their torches and tapping their sticks on the ground.
Both of them are unaware of the two shootouts between alleged cow smugglers and police in Alwar last week – including the one at a spot barely 2km from their outpost.
They say they get posted in different areas every day and are on duty from 11pm to 5am.
“The cow smugglers now come armed, firing in our direction. Besides that, they have devised ways of passing through. Once they are through this last check post, it’s their territory,” says Satya Prakash, one of the two personnel on duty.
Chief minister Vasundhara Raje set up 39 such outposts in 2014 for cow protection in a state that has ramped up efforts to protect its 13 million bovine animals, tagging them with unique identification numbers, adding more shelters and setting up India’s only cow ministry.
One assistant sub-inspector and six constables are assigned to each outpost but the numbers on duty are far less.