Ganjer Ali is a farmer, but he owns no land. His only wealth was nine cows. His family lived by raising them all year and selling one or two at a time, so he and his wife cared for the cows like their own children. But late on Tuesday night seven of Ganjer Ali's cows were stolen from the cowshed. Having lost their only source of income, Ganjer Ali and his wife now stand in front of the empty shed in tears.

The incident took place in Foyla village in the Kaliganj municipality area of Jhenaidah. The farmer's wife, Sinu Begum, has filed a complaint with Kaliganj police station.

Ganjer Ali said they fed the cows on Tuesday night and went to sleep. When he came out at around 4am, all seven cows in the shed were gone. Only two small calves remained, and the main gate of the house had been loosened. Because the house is beside the road, the thieves loaded the cows onto a pickup and drove off, he said.

Ganjer Ali said a rickshaw puller was heading towards neighbouring Narendrapur village before dawn. The thieves caught him, tied him to a tree with rope and gagged him with cloth so he could not raise the alarm. In the morning the rickshaw puller told him the thieves wore masks and carried large sharp machetes and other local weapons as they loaded the cows onto the pickup.

Ganjer Ali says the theft has cost them more than Tk 6 lakh.

His neighbour Zillur Rahman said the thieves climbed over the boundary wall into the house and then cut the hook on the gate. Fearing noise, they tied the cows' mouths with clothes that had been left outside and loaded them onto the pickup. "Ganjer Ali is a very poor farmer. Now he has lost everything," he said.

Motaleb Hossain, officer-in-charge (investigation) of Kaliganj police station, said the cattle theft was genuine. The police have received a complaint and are investigating.

Source: Samakal. First published in Bengali on The Agro News.