The Border Security Force (BSF) went in for a major reshuffle involving senior and middling level officers including some from the paramilitary force’s intelligence wing, since December 2018.
Insiders suggest that the new director general Rajni Kant Misra, an IPS officer of the 1984 batch, is on a ‘clean-up mission’, according to a report in southasianmonitor.com.
The report quoting senior government sources claimed that Misra has already ‘shunted out’ a large number of officers, including those in the rank of inspector-general, for their alleged involvement in cattle smuggling in the border states of West Bengal and Tripura.
These transfers made without making much of a noise about it was followed by preliminary inquiries initiated by Misra, who took charge of the BSF in October 2018.
Sources, according to the report claimed that the inquiries are ‘indirectly’ linked to the departure of CBI director Alok Verma who was alleged by the Central Vigilance Commission (CVC) to have ‘helped’ a nexus of BSF officers and cattle smugglers.
These allegations were part of the charges that CBI special director Rakesh Asthana made in a letter to the Central Vigilance Commissioner K V Chowdary last year.
The report further claimed that senior BSF officers admitted that IPS officers of the rank of IG and even some cadre officers have been beneficiaries of cattle smuggling, largely in the South Bengal and Tripura frontiers.
Two former BSF directors-general are alleged to have been recipients of slush money arising out of cattle smuggling.
The report also claimed that one of the former BSF chiefs is also said to hold shares in coal mines in a north-eastern state, an obvious pointer to Meghalya.