In two different incidents in Bharatpur district of Congress-ruled Rajasthan, cow smugglers opened fire and pelted stones on police teams on Thursday and Friday where two cops were injured.
SP of Bharatpur Devendra Kumar Bishnoi confirmed this to OpIndia stating that the two incidents took place under two different police station areas, namely Sewar and Bharatpur town police station.
“There was information of the illegal transportation of cattle as well as movement of inter-state criminals from Sikari to the town area. Further investigation is going on,” Bharatpur SP said.
In both incidents, police arrested four cow smugglers and forwarded them to jail. Four cows were rescued from their possession besides a pickup van and bike (one each), three country-made pistols, 13 live bullets and 10 litre liquor.
In Sewar police station case, two constables Sanjay Kumar and Rahul Katara were injured when cow smugglers opened fire and pelted stones on a police party at Gandhi Nagar Colony during the patrolling on Friday night.
Sanjay Kumar was hit by a bullet whereas Rahul Katara suffered stone injuries. But both are out of danger. In this case, the police arrested one accused identified as Irshad (36), a native of Uthawad in Haryana and rescued four cows from a pickup van used for smuggling. Four other cow smugglers managed to escape taking advantage of darkness.
The Officer in charge of Sewar police station Arun Choudhary told the media that during patrolling, a police team spotted a cow laden pick-up van. When asked to stop the cow smugglers they opened fire. The police also fired in self-defence.
In the second incident reported on Thursday evening, three cow smugglers opened 25 rounds of fire on the police. Bharatpur police had inputs about the movement of some criminals involved in cow smuggling. Police laid a barricade in front of Anar Devi Government Senior Secondary School on Deeg Main Road. Criminals broke past barricading and when asked to stop they started firing on police. After an hour-long encounter and chase, police arrested them. One of them jumped in a pond to escape but was caught by police. Police had a tough time keeping civilians away from cross-firing as police also fired seven rounds of bullets.
Country-made pistols, liquor, live bullets and a bike was recovered from them. All three arrested, Taufique, Sahun and Rishal, are dreaded criminals who are wanted in over a dozen cases of cow smuggling lodged at 15 police stations in Bharatpur and Alwar of Rajasthan besides 3 police stations in Haryana.
Bharatpur is part of the Mewat region forming the part of Rajasthan and Harayana which is a sensitive zone in terms of organised crime, cattle smuggling, illegal Rohingyas and mob violence against police.
In February 2020, a police sub-inspector was injured when cow smugglers opened fire at cops when they were acting on specific input of cow smuggling. In August this year cow smugglers had again fired on cops.
