Cop cover for 50 Rajasthan cows headed to Tamil Nadu
Three days after cow vigilantes attacked trucks carrying cows to Tamil Nadu in western Rajasthan’s Barmer town, a police jeep escorted the bovines out of Rajasthan and handed them over to Gujarat police around 4.30 am 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 requested police of all states the trucks will pass through – Rajasthan, Gujarat, Maharashtra and Karnataka – to provide protection to the bovines against vigilante attacks.
A police jeep with an inspector and three constables wielding rifles escorted five trucks carrying 50 cows of the Tharparkar breed to Gujarat border, 150 km from Barmer, in the dead of the night. “We left around 1 am 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 night of June 11. The drivers were thrashed, and an attempt was made to torch the vehicles.
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, reached Barmer on Monday and talked to their government to chart a new route.
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