‘Illegally’ keeping cows in shelter, cops may book Khan for smuggling

WHAT Police must book ‘smuggler’ under Bovine Act before seizing cows; in Alwar, no such case has been filed

It is likely that the Rajasthan Police may book Rakbar Khan, who was brutally thrashed by alleged gaurakshaks (cow vigilantes) leading to his death, for cow smuggling.

In the dock for seizing the victim’s cows even though there’s no case of cow smuggling against him, a senior official said the investigating team “may have forgot” to book Khan under the relevant law.

Special director general of police (law and order) NRK Reddy, who is heading the highlevel police committee probing the case, said that the police may have been too busy in handling the lynching. “However, in the subsequent investigation, we may register a case under the bovine act too,” he said.

In cases of alleged transport of bovines for slaughter, police register case under the Rajasthan Bovine Animal (Prohibition of Slaughter and Regulation of Temporary Migration or Export) Act, 1995, before seizing the cattle and depositing them in a registered cow shelter.

In the case of Rakbar Khan alias Akbar, 31, the only police case is against the people who allegedly beat him to death on the suspicion of cow smuggling on July 21-22 night. The police did not register a case under the bovine act but seized Khan’s two cows and deposited them in a shelter run by a Jain organization. People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL) said it was illegal to keep Rakbar’s cows in a shelter and demanded that they be restored to the family in Nuh.

“We demand that the cows be restored to the family of Akbar Khan and that no false case of cow smuggling be filed against Akbar and Aslam,” PUCL Rajasthan president Kavita Srivastava said in a statement.

Khan and Aslam Khan were taking the two cows to their village, Kol, in Haryana’s Nuh district on the night of July 21 when alleged gaurakshaks attacked them. Aslam managed to escape the mob fury while Khan was injured. When police took him to hospital at 4am on July 22, doctors declared him dead on arrival.

Meanwhile, police took the cows to Shree Digamber Jain Sudha Sagar Gaushala on the Alwar-Delhi road. “They brought the cows to the shelter at 3.26am.

JAIPUR: