Shas­tri Boodan

Ch­agua­nas farmer Ra­jen­dranath Lal­la, 42, says he is fed up with the runaround from the po­lice. On Fri­day night four dairy cat­tle were stolen from his farm, bring­ing it to a to­tal of eight cat­tle stolen from his fam­i­ly’s farm for the years so far. The an­i­mals are val­ued at close to $45,000.

Lal­la said he be­lieves a gang of squat­ters that op­er­ates with­in the com­mu­ni­ty of En­deav­our Road, Ch­agua­nas, is re­spon­si­ble. How­ev­er, the po­lice were not re­spond­ing and the gang is ter­ror­is­ing vil­lagers.

Lal­la said his fam­i­ly was farm­ing around 60 dairy cat­tle on 25 acres of leased land so they could sup­ply milk to Nes­tle.

He said two of the four cat­tle that were stolen on Fri­day had re­cent­ly giv­en birth to two calves who are now moth­er­less and have to be cared for by hand. Lal­la said when he made a re­port to the Cunu­pia po­lice he was told to go to the Prae­di­al Lar­ce­ny Squad, but when he vis­it­ed the unit he was told to go to the po­lice.

The farmer said po­lice came for the first time when the an­i­mals were stolen but did not re­turn yes­ter­day. “We want to get jus­tice here, if no­body puts a stop to it we will lose all the an­i­mals.”

Lal­la be­lieves that the an­i­mals were ei­ther sold to an­oth­er farm own­er or a butch­er. He said while they may have a watch group they op­er­ate with cau­tion be­cause they are fear­ful that the gang may show up with weapons.

Ch­agua­nas East MP Van­dana Mo­hit said she had raised the is­sue with the Ch­agua­nas po­lice. “I once again call on the Min­is­ter of Agri­cul­ture to help our farm­ers by ad­dress­ing the prob­lems faced by the Prae­di­al Lar­ce­ny Squad. This news of the Lal­la broth­ers can on­ly be de­scribed as dis­turb­ing. These gen­tle­men are known to be very qui­et and hard work­ing and I can un­der­stand every bit of their frus­tra­tion.”