article in The Telegraph, "people living in the border areas in Dhubri district complained that unabated smuggling of cattle resulted in cattle theft". According to a 2016 report in The Tribune, "rampant smuggling to Bangladesh had triggered cattle theft in many parts of the state, especially in eastern Assam". In West Bengal, rival cattle smuggling gangs have killed and burnt people and cattle alive. According to Clive Phillips, stealing of cattle from northeast India is a source of the smuggled cattle and the operation is "rife with bribes, corruption and murders of rival smuggling gang members". Incidents In November 2015, a man in Manipur was spotted by locals walking with a missing calf. They accused him of theft and lynched him. In Uttar Pradesh, four people were arrested after they threw away bovine carcass and confessed to stealing and slaughtering of cattle. In March 2016, villagers near Nagpur (Maharashtra) reported 60 thefts of cattle within a year. The cattle owners alleged that gangs were behind the theft and they were selling the stolen cattle to slaughterhouses. In January 2017, villagers in Karnataka chased a truck carrying stolen cattle, caught two cattle thieves and handed them over to police. The truck toppled over, killing one of the cows inside the truck. Riots broke out in Gujarat when local people discovered a partially decomposed calf head near a road side butcher shop. In West Bengal, according to a June 2017 Indian Express report, villagers of Durgapur showed "copies of nearly two dozen police complaints of cow thefts", then claimed that the police asked them to take care of such "petty matters" themselves. Further poor farmers complained of economic calamity from the thefts and a willingness to beat anybody they catch with stolen cattle. In northern region of the state, a gang of about 10 men came in a van in an alleged attempt in a village to steal cows, and a few of them were shot dead after they had entered a cowshed and had already taken cows from two homes. In Assam, two Muslim teenagers were killed, after they were caught untying two cows in a pasture and then suspected of trying to steal those cows. According to The Financial Express, cow smugglers use cruel methods such as dumping them in fast flowing rivers to transport cows into Bangladesh. In Uttar Pradesh, three suspects were caught stealing a buffalo by villagers