Cattle call

Cattle thieves are rampant across the Hindi heartland but the ones that had the audacity to steal Uttar Pradesh (UP) minister and Samajwadi Party senior leader Azam Khan's seven buffaloes in January last year, have run out of luck. While five of the gang members were nabbed some time back and the buffaloes were traced in an overnight raid involving dog squads, crime branch sleuths and UP police personnel, the main accused managed to flee. But the buffalo thief was finally nabbed on Tuesday when the Moradabad police were cracking a case of dacoity and the accused confessed to stealing the bovines from the minister's barn.