Rad­hi­ca Sookraj

Herds of cat­tle, in search of wa­ter and grass, are caus­ing hav­oc in Gand­hi Vil­lage, Debe, chas­ing res­i­dents, tram­pling crops and in­vad­ing hous­es.

The high­ly-bred Hol­stein and Ze­bu cows were spot­ted graz­ing on kitchen gar­dens around 10 am yes­ter­day, on Rail­way Road, Debe. A few res­i­dents locked them­selves in their hous­es as the an­i­mals made their way on to premis­es, nib­bling on moko, ba­nanas and ripe toma­toes. Sec­re­tary of Gand­hi Vil­lage Coun­cil, In­di­ra Kat­wa­roo, said three months ago, the an­i­mals were seen graz­ing on the old rail­way line in the vil­lage. She said they did not have rope around their necks. Two of them had num­bered clips on their ears, in­di­cat­ing that they had own­ers. How­ev­er, with­in re­cent times Kat­wa­roo said the an­i­mals start­ed mov­ing clos­er to the vil­lage in search of wa­ter and grass. She said the pro­longed dry weath­er had left the lands dried, and soon the an­i­mals start­ed graz­ing along the riv­er banks where farm­ers plant­ed fields of ochroes, bo­di, jhin­gi, sweet pep­pers and pi­men­tos. Sookraj Son­ny said last week he no­ticed the an­i­mals in his field of ochro. When he tried to dri­ve them off, one of the bulls chased him. He es­caped by climb­ing a tree.

Farmer Latch­mi­nar­ine Singh said he was fed up of the sit­u­a­tion. "I plant­ed sev­en acres of ochro and bo­di. and they eat out the tops of the plants. We al­ready suf­fer­ing be­cause we can't find wa­ter for our crops, and now we have to lose more be­cause of this," Singh com­plained. He said there were four peo­ple rear­ing cows in the dis­trict, but no­body was claim­ing own­er­ship of the ma­raud­ing an­i­mals. "When we ask them, they say­ing it is not their cows." An­oth­er farmer, Ram­jat­tan Lalchan, said res­i­dents made sev­er­al re­ports at the Debe Po­lice Post, but the of­fi­cers were un­will­ing to help. "They told us to chop up the cows and bring them to the sta­tion," Lalchan said. He added that 90 per cent of Ca­roni work­ers went in­to farm­ing af­ter the com­pa­ny closed its doors in 2003.

How­ev­er, he said the wa­ter cri­sis and the dev­as­ta­tion caused by the cows should be in­ves­ti­gat­ed by the au­thor­i­ties. In the mean­time, some res­i­dents said they would con­tin­ue to lock their doors. Dar­cy Per­sad said five of the an­i­mals came un­der her home yes­ter­day and ate her pro­duce. "I am afraid of them, so all day we had to lock up and stay in­side un­til they left." Of­fi­cials from the an­i­mals di­vi­sion at Brechin Cas­tle, Cou­va, are ex­pect­ed to vis­it the area to in­ves­ti­gate.