Hingonia exposes govt hypocrisy on cow protection: PUCL

JAIPUR: People’s Union for Civil Liberties, in a statement on Monday, noted that there was stark hypocrisy in beating the drum about cow protection and allowing over 1,000 cows to die at the Hingonia cow shelter near Jaipur.
About 75 are dying each day still, the statement said. Matters had come to this pass because of differences between Otaram Devasi, Rajasthan’s cow protection minister, the first man in the country to be appointed to such an office, and the state’s local self government minister Rajpal Singh Shekhawat, PUCL said.
Although crores of rupees were allotted to the cow shelter, workers had been denied wages for four months; fodder had not been procured, leaving the cows starving, the statement noted.
PUCL said that although Prime Minister Narendra Modi had condemned the cow vigilantes as goons, in states like Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh, where the BJP is in power, Dalits and minorities have been beaten and harassed for dealing with cow carcasses. The Dadri lynching over suspicion of having consumed and stored beef was also mentioned in the PUCL press release.
The statement recalled the May 2015 instance in Nagaur district of Rajasthan, where rumours of cow slaughter sparked communal tension.