Cattle continue to arrive at city markets [ Tritiyo Matra News ]

Cattle continue to arrive at city markets

Local September 20, 2015

Traders and farmers from different districts continued pouring different makeshift cattle markets in the capital with their cattle hoping to get better prices.
Besides the permanent cattle market at Gabtoli, makeshift cattle markets, set up at 22 designated places in Dhaka Metropolitan Police and Dhaka district areas, began functioning from early Saturday.
Traders said that they were coming with a plenty of cows, reared by local farmers, and expected higher prices as the costs of the fodder and other materials and transport were higher than that of previous years.
Though the traders had been arriving at the markets amidst hot weather coupled with rain, the market authorities were yet to complete making sheds.
Cattle markets at Gabtoli, Shahjahanpur and Balur Math were found not fulfilled with cows, but trucks loaded with cows were coming there on Saturday.
Sharing their past experiences, cattle market authorities expressed hope that the markets would be fulfilled by Monday morning when the markets would witness plenty of buyers.
Alamgir Hossain of village Baraichara under Kumarkhali upazila in Kushtia said he came to Gabtoli market with 11 cows and would ask Tk 22 lakh for the biggest one but he was yet to meet any buyer.
He said that he had reared and fattened all the 11 cows, all Australian species, for one year and a half.
He claimed that his biggest cow weighed about 1,200 kilograms and it was nine feet long and five feet and a half in height.
Cattle trader Abdul Khaleq from Bera in Pabna said that he came to Balur Math market with his cattle on Saturday morning and found that sheds were still being made.
He said that he and his three fellows brought 14 cows spending Tk 22,000 as truck fare but he had spent Tk 17,000 as transport cost for the same number of cows in the past year.
Gabtoli cattle market director Rakib Imran said that plenty of cows had been arriving at the market and hoped that all the sheds would be fulfilled by Monday morning.
He said that there would be no crisis of cattle this year as the country had a sufficient stock while some Indian cows had also been arriving.
He said that the price of the cows would remain ‘normal’ this year though the traders at this moment were asking high prices as there would be plenty of supply.
On early Saturday, a truck loaded with 16 cows from Jessore was hijacked and four traders were stabbed on Manik Mia Avenue at Sher-e-Bangla Nagar.
The injured traders, Masum, 24, Sujan, 26, Tanzimul, 28 and Thandu Miah, 45, were rescued and given treatment at Dhaka Medical College Hospital.
The victims said that about 10 hijackers waylaid them with a pick-up van near the parliament complex and climbed to the truck, took it away after stabbing and beating them.
Masum said that two of their fellow traders were also picked up, but were dropped at Hatirjheel.
Sher-e-Bangla Nagar police officer-in-charge DG Biswash said that the truck was seized from Ashulia in a few hours and the truck driver was arrested but the hijacked cows were yet to be rescued.
New Age correspondent in Munshiganj reported that cattle traders from different districts including Rangpur, Bogra, Dinajpur and Sirajganj arrived at Mukterpur cattle market in the district with their cattle.
The traders said that the cows were falling sick because of hot weather.
Trader Md Omar, like most other traders at the market, was found to fan his cattle with a hand-made fan while some other traders were rubbing their cattle with wet towels.