WITH the killing of a teenager after a 30-km chase in the National Capital Region by alleged cow vigilantes leaving the BJP government in poll-bound Haryana red-faced, VHP president Alok Kumar told The Indian Express that the Sangh Parivar “does not approve of violence in any manner”.
Other leaders of the Sangh outfit at the forefront of cow protection insisted that the incident, which led to the killing of a Hindu youth, was not related to cow protection.
“The VHP does not support or approve any violence or breach of law against any person. VHP and Bajrang Dal workers have been trained to remain within the law in their pursuit of protection of cows. We believe that the Haryana Police will make appropriate enquiry into the matter and get to the bottom of it,” Kumar said.
VHP spokesperson Vinod Bansal said: “We believe this incident has nothing to do with cow protection.” He told The Indian Express: “To connect something as pious as cow protection with a gruesome crime may be fine for politics, but society will never accept it. It is an unfortunate incident. The accused has already been arrested. Haryana has a capable government and we are confident the police will unravel the entire case.”
A team of self-proclaimed gau rakshaks chased and shot Faridabad resident and Class 12 student Aryan Mishra, on the Delhi-Agra highway near Palwal on August 23. The Haryana Police has arrested five people in the case, including alleged team leader Anil Kaushik.
The police have said the accused confessed they mistook Aryan for a cattle smuggler who was transporting beef. With Aryan’s parents questioning what right the cattle smugglers had to open fire on anyone, what has put the Haryana government in a spot is evidence of Kaushik’s ties to the police as part of his “cow protection” campaign, as reported by The Indian Express on Thursday.
Sangh Parivar sources admitted that the fact that a Hindu youth has fallen victim to cow vigilantes, known to operate with impunity in Haryana areas bordering Delhi, could be played up by the BJP’s rivals during the Assembly elections, scheduled for October 5. “It gives a bad name to the whole system of cow protection, about which there is a positive sentiment in Haryana,” a Sangh functionary from the region said.
On Wednesday, AAP Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Singh said the BJP government was to blame for the murder. “In the name of cow protection, human beings and humanity are being murdered. Terrorism is being spread in the name of cow protection. Who are these people who have become the thekedaar (arbiters) of religion? Who has given them this contract? The Prime Minister does not utter a word on such issues. The BJP stays quiet on such murders,” Singh, whose party is hoping to make an impact in the Haryana polls, said.
Giving out data that he said showed that in the past 10 years (of BJP rule), there had been 49 incidents related to cow protection in which 55 people had been murdered and 93 injured across the country, Singh said: “The murders are sponsored by the Haryana government. These are happening under the protection of the state government.”
The AIMIM’s Asaduddin Owaisi has said the accused were not gau rakshaks but “rakshasas (demons)”. “The Haryana government has given them a free hand. The murderer is saying that he has committed a blunder as he has ended up killing a Brahmin boy. That is why a poet has said that when you start a fire, everyone’s house will burn. Has the Haryana Police outsourced its job to cow vigilantes?” Owaisi said.
Incidentally, in his first term as PM, in the wake of several incidents of lynching in the name of the cow, Narendra Modi had expressed his anguish over the same.
Addressing a government event on August 23, 2016, the PM said: “Some people are running a business in the name of cow protection. I feel so angry. A gau bhakt, a gau sevak (cow devotee) is different. I have seen that some people who engage in anti-social activities all night masquerade as cow vigilantes during the day. I request state governments to prepare a dossier of such ‘swayamsevis’. I am sure 70-80% of them will turn out to be engaged in activities that the society does not approve of.”
The PM also said: “Most cows die due to consumption of plastic and not due to slaughter. If they want to serve cows, they should stop cows from eating plastic.”
