50 cows on road to TN get police jeep for protection
FALLOUT TN govt requests police of 4 states to provide protection against vigilante attacks
Three days after cow vigilantes attacked trucks carrying cows to Tamil Nadu in western Rajasthan’s Barmer town, a police jeep escorted the convoy out of Rajasthan and handed them over to Gujarat police at dawn on Wednesday.
“We had instructions from the police headquarters to provide police protection to the five trucks carrying cows to Tamil Nadu,” said Barmer’s police chief Gagandeep Singla.
Officials said the Tamil Nadu government had requested the police of all states that the trucks will pass through — Rajasthan, Gujarat, Maharashtra and Karnataka — to provide protection to the trucks carrying the bovines against vigilante attacks.
A police jeep with an inspector and three armed constables escorted five trucks carrying 50 cows of the Tharparkar breed to Gujarat border, 150km from Barmer in Rajasthan, in the dead of the night.
“We left around 1am and reached Gujarat border early morning where a team of Gujarat police was waiting to escort the trucks further,” said Rajendra Choudhary, the leader of the police escort.
The Tamil Nadu animal husbandry department bought the cows from Jaisalmer on June 11. A mob of cow vigilantes attacked the trucks while they were passing through Barmer on the night of June 11.
The drivers were thrashed, and an attempt was made to torch the vehicles.
However, timely police action prevented that.
Barmer police named 50 people as accused for the attack and arrested eight of them so far. The others are absconding. The Tamil Nadu officials, who were not in the trucks when the attack occurred at night, reached Barmer on Monday and stayed there for two days, talking to their government and charting a new route.
“We told our department that we would travel only after the government ensured security to us,” said an official who did not want to be named because he is not authorised to talk to the media.
Barmer district collector Shivprasad Nakate said the administration looked after the cattle for two days and got the trucks repaired before sending them off to Gujarat under police protection.
A source said the Tamil Nadu government has also sought a factual report of the Sunday’s attack on their team from Rajasthan government.
Barmer district officials said the Tamil Nadu team had permit issued by the Jaisalmer district administration, which is needed under the Rajasthan Bovine Animal (Prohibition of Slaughter and Regulation of Temporary Migration or Export) Act, 1995, for the export of bovine animals from Rajasthan.
A group of 65 former bureaucrats have written an open letter to PM Narendra Modi over what they termed as ‘growing hyper-nationalism that reduces any critique to a binary that if you are not with the government, you are anti-national’.
The signatories include former Union culture secretary Jawahar Sircar, former information and broadcasting secretary Bhaskar Ghose, former chief information commissioner Wajahat Habibullah, former Mumbai police chief Julio Rebeiro, former bureaucrat-turned-activists Aruna Roy and Harsh Mander, former Indian Foreign service officer Deb Mukharji, and former Gujarat cadre IPS officer Rahul Sharma, among others.
The letter says: “In Uttar Pradesh, in the run-up to the elections, an odious and frankly communal comparison was made between the relative number of burial grounds and cremation grounds. The question was also asked as to whether electricity was being supplied equally to different communities during their religious festivals. All this without any basis in fact or evidence.”
The letter further said the banning of slaughterhouses targets the minorities and affects their livelihoods as well. The former bureaucrats appealed to public authorities and constitutional bodies to take heed of these disturbing trends and take corrective action to reclaim and defend the spirit of the Constitution, as envisaged by the founding fathers.
The letter said the behaviour of vigilantes, who act as prosecutor, judge and executioner rolled into one, flies in the face of law and jurisprudence.
“I am not affiliated with any political party. We have just shown a ‘yellow card’ to the government telling it what is happening in the country at the moment is not done,” Sircar, former Prasar Bharti CEO, told HT.
“A draft was circulated a few days back and everyone felt there was a need to write such a letter. As far as the future course is concerned, each of us would decide upon it individually,” he said.
A POLICE JEEP WITH AN INSPECTOR AND THREE ARMED CONSTABLES ESCORTED FIVE TRUCKS CARRYING 50 COWS TO GUJARAT BORDER, 150KM FROM BARMER, IN THE DEAD OF NIGHT