is a common crime, states Smruti Pattanaik. According to Zahoor Rather, trade in stolen cattle is one of the important crime-related border issues between India and Bangladesh. A 2017 Rajya Sabha panel led by the Congress leader P. Chidambaram criticized the West Bengal government for its failures related to rampant cattle smuggling to Bangladesh. Government authorities and local residents in areas surrounding Bangladesh have stated that frequent cattle-smuggling across the border from India is causing an increase in cattle theft." Hundreds of thousands of cows, states the British newspaper The Independent in a 2012 article, are illegally smuggled from India into Bangladesh every year to be slaughtered. Gangs from both sides of the border are involved in this illegal smuggling involving an estimated 1.5 million (15 lakhs) cattle a year, and cattle theft is a source of the supply, states Andrew Buncombe. According to a 2014 report by The International Business Times, criminal gangs steal and smuggle cattle from India into Bangladesh, an operation that yields them "hundreds of millions of dollars annually in illicit profits". Not only it hurts the cattle owners, the activity is dangerous as it leads to deaths of the "perpetrators and innocent bystanders", states Palash Ghosh. (...) the illegal mass-theft of cattle is a huge problem thousands of miles away from the Chisum Trail – on the border between India and Bangladesh. Along the largely porous boundary between Bangladesh and the Indian state of West Bengal, cattle-raids and cattle-smuggling, often conducted by criminal gangs, raise hundreds of millions of dollars annually in illicit profits. The activity is so lucrative and dangerous that it often costs the lives of the perpetrators and innocent bystanders. (...) Bimal Pramanik, an independent researcher in Kolkata, told the Monitor that Bangladesh has an insatiable demand for beef. 'Bangladeshi slaughterhouses cannot source even 1 million cows from within the country. If Indian cows do not reach the Bangladeshi slaughterhouses, there will be a big crisis there,' he said, adding that he estimates three-fourths of all cows slaughtered in Bangladesh originated in India. In this thriving trade, [herds of] cows worth 50 billion rupees are sent across to Bangladesh every year. (...); Impact on cattle theft in India Government authorities and local residents in areas surrounding Bangladesh state that frequent cattle-smuggling across the border from India is causing an increase in Cattle theft in India and other crimes: According to a 2011