Cuttack: Jagatpur police rescued 64 cattle and seized two containers during a crackdown on smugglers near Birupa bridge here Saturday.
Police arrested seven persons in connection with smuggling of cattle and produced them in a local court. The accused were identified as Azad Muhammad (39), Ajmar Khan (41) and Sourab Muhammad (30) of Balanga area in Puri district, MD Mushi (23) and Salman Khan (26) of Haryana and Saha Nawaj (31) and Nadeem (45) of Uttar Pradesh.
According to sources, the accused were carrying cattle illegally in two containers from Sakhigopal area in Puri to Kolkata in the wee hours of Saturday.
Acting on a tip-off, Jagatpur police intercepted the two containers and rescued the cattle. They later shifted the recued cattle to a goshala (cowshed) at Choudwar.
Notably, a joint team of Jagatpur and Choudwar police had rescued 176 cattle from smugglers near Birupa bridge Thursday. The team had retrieved carcasses of three cattle from a container during the crackdown.
