Cattle theft keeps Dakshina Kannada on the boil

Mangaluru: Fifty three year old Kalyani anxiously looks at the gate whenever she hears the cry of a calf or a cow. She feels her Ganga and many others who went 'missing' a few years ago might have returned. Many of her cattle were stolen and she is hoping against hope that they will be back in her cattle shed some day. 

Kalyani who belongs to Nadupadau village, once supplied about 40 litres of milk every day to people including those in Mangaluru University, and has lost 37 cattle to  thieves in the last ten years! The situation has gone from bad to worse and the family which once provided milk to various families, had to finally depend on packed milk! Kalyani and her family found it difficult to drink it especially with her daughter in the house for her delivery. Finally she took a cow from her brother so that her pregnant daughter could get healthy milk.

Kalyani's story could pain anybody who listens to her. "When I came to my husband's house about 38 years ago there were no cows here. As I had the habit of rearing cows since my childhood, I asked my father-in-law if I could purchase one. Those were difficult days and so I volunteered to sell my earring and purchased a cow for Rs 4," Kalyani narrates her story.

She got her second cow from her father and the third from her relative. Gradually the number of cows increased in her house. She was so close to the bovines that she did not differentiate between her two children and them.

Everything was fine till about ten years ago when she found a cow missing when they had gone to attend  a wedding. Many of the villagers had similar complaints and it became clear that cattle theft had started in the village.

"That was the first time my cow was stolen. Later, many were stolen, there were days when three cows were stolen in one day. I never sold any of my cows to anybody. But I lost my Singari, Gayatri, Anuradha, Ganga, Ponnu and others. I almost lost my mind when I lost Ganga about three years ago who was born here and would give 22 litres of milk per day!" Kalyani says.

There is hardly any temple which she did not visit to get her cattle back. She has even been to temples in nearby Kerala to ask for her cows. "I still feel my cows will come back. My life is nothing without cows," she laments.

Most of the cattle were stolen when they were left in the nearby hill for grazing. But in two incidents, they were forcefully taken from the cattle shed too.

 “Once we lost three cows and I started searching for them. I found one of the pregnant cows with its leg cut. The cow was scared and had delivered a premature calf. Both the cow and calf died in front of us," Kalyani's son recollects the horror.

“As the shed is near the road thieves have also taken it from the shed when we were asleep. We tried to catch the thieves with the help of the police but nothing much happened," he adds.

There are many who have similar stories of cattle theft to narrate. There are cases where the thieves had shown lethal weapons to family members and robbed the cows right in front of them. Many have installed iron gates and CCTV cameras to guard the cattle. 

Cattle theft has no doubt witnessed an increase in recent years but not many prefer to bring it to the notice of the police due to various reasons.