Congress leader, columnist and model Tehseen Poonawala on Saturday moved the Supreme Court seeking a ban on cow vigilante groups in the country.
In his petition, Mr Poonawala has sought a ban on such groups on the grounds that they were operating illegally in several parts of the country, allegedly killing people in the name of protecting the cow. He likened the gau rakshaks to the now-disbanded “salwa judum”, a similar vigilante group formed by the Chattisgarh government who armed civilians to kill Maoists.
The petitioner alleged that some states like Gujarat, Haryana, MP and Maharashtra have given licenses to these groups to check passing trucks for illegal cow meat.
Cow vigilante groups have been in the news in the past few months following a series of incidents across the country where beef-eaters and those purportedly indulging in cow slaughter had been targeted.
Starting from Mohammad Akhlaq’s lynching in Uttar Pradesh for allegedly eating beef to the bashing up of a dalit family in Gujarat for skinning a dead cow, the country has been witnessing a spurt in such incidents.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has expressed concern over the activities of such vigilante groups and said that some of these self-styled gau rakshaks were anti-social elements.
