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(Pi Bureau)
AHMEDABAD: Prime Minister Narendra Modi today said that the killing of innocent people by cow vigilantes is unacceptable. “Killing people in the name of Gau Bhakti is not acceptable,” he said, stressing, “No person in this nation has the right to take the law in his or her own hands in this country.” While saying that protecting cows, sacred for Hindus, is needed – “No one spoke about protecting cows more than Mahatma Gandhi and Acharya Vinoba Bhave,” he said, “this (violence) is not something Mahatma Gandhi would approve of.”
In August last year, the PM lashed out at those who he said “use the mask” of cow protecting to attack others.
A notification by the government in May stated that people buying and selling cattle in markets must submit in writing that it is not meant for slaughter. Further, a market committee would have to be formed in every cattle market and fair to enforce this provision. The government argued that the rules were meant for preventing cruelty to animals.
His remarks today were made at Mahatma Gandhi’s Sabarmati Ashram in Gujarat, his home state, which votes soon, and a day after people across the country protested against mob attacks.
Earlier this week, a group of people on a train killed 16-year-old Junaid Khan, who was traveling home to his village in Haryana with his brother and two cousins after a shopping excursion to Delhi ahead of Eid.
A group of about 20 men accused the teen and his companions of carrying beef in their bags and yelled religious slurs at them before they beat Junaid Khan and stabbed him to death. He was thrown off the train.
Five men including a Delhi government employee have been arrested for his murder, but the man who stabbed him has yet to be caught.
PM Modi has been targeted by critics for not condemning the growing list of attacks by self-declared cow vigilantes, many of them in states governed by his party, the BJP. In one of them, Rajasthan, a 55-year-old named Pehlu Khan, was beaten relentlessly in April for transporting cows for his dairy farm after his assaulters accused him of smuggling the cows illegally. He died of his wounds. Tamilnadu officials too were beaten by cow vigilantes when they were transporting cows from Rajasthan.
A series of steps taken by the centre and its state governments – like the introduction of new rules that restrict the sale of cattle for slaughter and the crackdown on abattoirs in Uttar Pradesh – is being seen as targeting Muslims, who dominate the meat trade.
Earlier , Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said this week that the death of Junaid Khan was “extremely shameful and painful” and that such attacks would not be tolerated, and people who take law unto their hands will punished as per the law.
Welcoming the PM’s statement, Congress leader Renuka Chowdhury said, “We are glad the PM has finally spoken out. But what steps does his government plan to take to check such incidents?”
AIMIM chief Asaduddin Owaisi, however, called the PM’s comments “mere lip service”. “Prime Minister’s statement is mere lip service as there has been slip between the cup and the lip.”
Trinamool Congress chief and West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee said “just words are not enough”.
