Excelsior Correspondent
POONCH, Jan 2: The bovine smugglers operating through Mughal Road between Rajouri-Poonch and Kashmir have changed their strategy of smuggling animals to dodge police agencies.
Sources said that in view of mounting pressure on the smugglers for the past some time by the police agencies, the smugglers are now avoiding to carry bovine animals in trucks or other mini trucks/ Tata Mobile vehicles from Rajouri-Poonch side. Some locals of the area are hired by the smugglers to carry bovine animals in small herds on foot.
Right from Rajouri, Thanna Mandi in Surankote and even Bafliaz area, the animals are taken on foot. The people engaged for the purpose, in order to escape from the police nakas on the highway, adopt the old on-foot routes which are preferably away from the road. At the point somewhere nearby Chhattapani or Pir Ki Gali, trucks/ Tata Mobile vehicles coming from Shopian side keep waiting for the animals on the way and then they are loaded in the vehicles and carried to Kashmir valley.
Acting on the basis of definite information, a police party from Surankote led by SHO Maroof Khan, under the supervision of SDPO Ajay Sharma and SSP Poonch, J S Johar, conducted raid in plain clothes, using civil vehicle and intercepted the smugglers near Chhattapani about 35 kms from Bafliaz when they were loading six bovine animals in two Tata Mobile vehicles last evening. Six bovine animals were rescued from their clutches. Some of the smugglers managed to escape taking advantage of darkness. The seized animals were removed to Bafliaz Police Post. A case FIR No. 01/2015 u/s 188/353 RPC was registered in this connection at Surankote Police Station against main smuggler Riaz Ahmed, son of Abdul Rashid, resident of Khablan in Rajouri.