Editorial: Cattle cartel land

It is nothing short of a stain on India's conscience, as a Class 12 student named Aryan Mishra (19) was slain by cow vigilantes following a car chase in Faridabad, last month. The gau rakshaks chased down Mishra for close to 30 km before gunning him down in cold blood. Police sources said that the accused confessed that they had received information that suspected cattle smugglers were conducting reconnaissance in the city in two SUVs. They mistook Mishra and his friends for cattle smugglers and followed their car on the Delhi-Agra National Highway, which culminated in a senseless tragedy.

This incident was followed by a migrant worker from Bengal, Sabir Malik, being beaten to death in Haryana's Charkhi Dadri, at the hands of yet another cow vigilante group. He was murdered over suspicion that he had consumed beef. Per information available in the public domain, 49 incidents of cow vigilantism took place in India over the last 10 years, in which 55 people were killed and 94 injured. Episodes of lynching peaked during the period of 2016-17 when UP, Haryana, Rajasthan, as well as parts of Bihar and Jharkhand, witnessed one after the other atrocity being directed at members of the minority community. Haryana, which is now set for the upcoming Assembly polls, is a BJP-ruled state, where opposition leaders claimed that gau rakshaks were operating under the auspices of the ruling party.

Such unconstitutional episodes of thuggery have become an everyday affair across religiously sensitive belts. The police is now making fresh efforts to re-arrest three men accused of assaulting an elderly man on a train in Nashik on suspicion that he was carrying beef. Ashraf Ali Sayyed Hussain (72), from Jalgaon district, was assaulted by a group on board the Dhule-Mumbai CSMT Express. A video of the incident went viral on social media which ignited a national outrage, following which there were demands to arrest the assaulters.

A closer look at the Aryan Mishra case reveals that the main accused in the murder is Anil Kaushik, an active gau rakshak and a member of the official cow protection taskforce in Faridabad. While the police maintain that the role of such rakshaks is limited to giving tip-offs about cattle smuggling, the enforcement of law and order is under the cops’ purview. However, Kaushik is often known to go beyond the call of duty and engage in chasing down and intercepting suspicious vehicles. In a clear violation of rules, these gau rakshaks also carry firearms.

Carrying such artillery has precedents, as in the case of Monu Manesar who was apprehended by the Rajasthan police for his involvement in the murders of two men from Bharatpur by cow vigilantes last year. There is a cloak of selective amnesia that cow vigilantes hide behind. The idea of lynching non-Hindus on account of protecting cows is being looked up to as a ‘sacred duty’ by gullible and bigoted individuals who have learned that even food choices are something that can be weaponised against certain communities for political gain.

Having said that, India surpassed the US in beef exports last year to become the third largest exporter in the world. Shipping beef to 79 countries, the nation is expected to retain this rank in 2024 as well. It begs the question — how do we reconcile our seemingly limitless religious dogmatism and our economic aspirations? It's googly even for the vigilantes.