Citing recent cases of bovines being slaughtered and their body parts being found in public places in Dehradun, animal welfare activists have accused the State Government of not only failing to implement the Uttarakhand Protection of Cow Progeny Act 2007 but also of encouraging illegal cow slaughter passively.
It will be recalled that within a span of about a week, there were at least three incidents in Dehradun wherein locals protested aftering discovering body parts of bovines thrown in public places. The police arrested two persons who confessed to butchering or smuggling bovines regularly from the State. However, soon after their arrest a local found some men carrying bovine meat and body parts in a gunny sack. While the men escaped leaving behind the bovind meat, the public protested against such incidents.
According to Gau Seva Aayog member Gauri Maulekhi, the Uttarakhand Protection of Cow Progeny Act 2007 bans cow slaughter, makes it mandatory for all bovines to be radio tagged and stipulates that there will be a post mortem of each cow death. “However, the Act has been ignored by the State Government. In 2008 the then Animal Husbandry secretary Amrendra Sinha had made a proposal for radio tagging bovines and money had been released by the State Government for this but the next department secretary, Vinod Fonia returned the money back to the Treasury stating that such tasks were impractical in a poor State,” she alleged.
The activist further alleged that the Congress-led State Government is encouraging illegal cow slaughter by not punishing the guilty and letting the crime go unchallenged.
“Cattle smuggling is thriving in the State while villages where bovines are illegally slaughtered are doing brisk business with the support of corrupt Ministers and lack of Government will to prevent such crime. At least 10,000 cattle are smuggled each month from Uttarakhand for illegal slaughter but the Government is remaining apathetic to the situation. Even when activists themselves try to prevent the smuggling by nabbing the guilty red-handed, the help provided by police and Animal Husbandry department is inadequate. While the State Government allows this crime in pursuit of vote bank politics, the Gau Seva Aayog remains a body only on paper because not even a chairperson or vice chairperson has been appointed for it yet,” she added.