Our Correspondent / New Delhi
A group of Gao Rakshaks (Cow protectors) today hooted Union Minister for Agriculture Radhamohan Singh and Minister for Environment, Forest and Climate Change Prakash Javdekar when they were explaining government schemes to protect cows at a seminar in New Delhi’s Vigyan Bhavan.
National Conference on ‘Gaushalas’, was organised by the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change and Department of Animal Husbandry, Dairying & Fisheries, on the second anniversary of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) victory in the Lok Sabha elections.
Agriculture Minister Radhamohan Singh and Environment minister Prakash Javdekar inaugurated the seminar. Home minister Rajnath Singh did not turn up for the meet.
A group of people hooted both ministers when they spoke on cow protection. As Radhamohan Singh said government has released Rs 582 cr for cow protection, many Gao Rakshaks stood up to ask where is the money?
The protestors disputed the government claim of protecting the cows, saying ministers were only playing politics over the religious animal.
They said cow slaughter in Haryana is banned but government there is selling most of the grazing fields. “So where will the cows go” asks Jitendar Malik of Gaoshala Sangh Haryana.
The other protesters also said that the government policy is to promote foreign breeds. “Who will look after the desi breed. No policy for desi cows” they asked the minister amid din.
The seminar was organised to discuss —how to increase the milk production, provide nutritious feed and fodder to cows and how to make non-productive cows financially sustainable.
In March 2015, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led Maharashtra government passed the Maharashtra Animal Preservation (Amendment) Bill, 1995, under which anyone found with beef or selling it could be jailed for five years and fined up to Rs.10,000.
However, last week, the Bombay high court allowed the possession and consumption of beef brought from outside the state.
Recently two you Muslims boys in Jharkhand were hanged to death by a group of Gao rakshak.
In October 2015, a man was lynched by a mob after rumours that he had stocked beef at his home in Dadri Uttar Pradesh.
