Cow protectors victims: VHP

Our Special Correspondent New Delhi, July 4: The Vishwa Hindu Parishad today strongly backed "gau rakshaks"(cow protectors) and portrayed them as "victims, not tyrants". Like Prime Minister Narendra Modi last week, the VHP referred to Mahatma Gandhi's stress on cow protection and demanded a strong anti-cow slaughter law. "Mahatma Gandhi had said swaraj (self-rule) is incomplete without gau raksha. He understood the strong resolve of Hindus for gau raksha and therefore made it the centre-point of our freedom struggle," VHP international joint secretary Surendra Kumar Jain said. During his recent trip to Sabarmati ashram in Gujarat, Modi had said "killing in the name of cow worship was not acceptable", but stressed the need for cow protection and asked people to follow non-violent ways of preserving cows like Gandhi and Vinoba Bhave. Jain said the VHP too was against violence but asked the central government to enact a stringent anti-cow slaughter law and said its implementation would end the "struggle" for cow protection. "We are of the clear view that vested interests are creating a poisonous atmosphere in the country. It can be checked only through a strong anti-cow slaughter central law and its effective implementation. Once the law is implemented, there will be no need for a struggle," he said. Jain said " gau rakshaks" were "victims , not tyrants" and alleged that deadly attacks were being carried out on them. He accused those involved in the meat trade of maligning cow protectors and urged all state governments not to target gau rakshaks. "In the past 10 years, more than 50 policemen and gau rakshaks have been killed by cow-killers. It proves that gau rakshaks are victims, not tyrants," Jain claimed. Asked about the lynching of teenager Junaid Khan on a Delhi-Mathura train and a meat trader in BJP-ruled Jharkhand, Jain condemned the killings and said there was no place for violence in cow protection. "Whoever is killed, it is not right," he said. Jain, however, accused the media of being selective and ignoring "deadly attacks" on cow protectors. He also denied any involvement of VHP and Bajrang Dal activists in the killing of the meat trader in Jharkhand's Ramgarh. "The VHP and the Bajrang Dal do not have any unit in Ramgarh. We used to have one, but now we don't have," Jain said.