In the last few days, some politicians have stated that consumption of beef is the reason behind the lynchings around the country. Although, the mainstream media lambasted these politicians for making such a comment there is also another side of the coin which the media completely chose to ignore. In Rajasthan alone, in last three years, 1,113 cases of cow smuggling have been filed and 2,198 smugglers have been arrested. Illegal smugglers many a times have killed innocent people and policemen those who tried to stop them. Again in Rajasthan alone, there were 33 instances of firing between smugglers and the police in the last three years. Seven policemen suffered injuries in the firing incidents while one smuggler was killed and three were injured. Cow smugglers are so fearless that they entered the National Security Guard (NSG) camp at Manesar and fired several rounds at security personnel on the premises.
Recently, British-resident Sonia Sharma and her friend Archie Barnwal, were shot by cow smugglers, when these two brave women tried to save the cows that were tied and were clearly stuffed into a small vehicle.
Jun 2016: Two unidentified cattle-smugglers shot and killed a 16-year old minor girl called Nirdesh Singh of Ahmadabad village, when she caught them stealing her cattle from her backyard barn.
Jun 2016: A 35-year old Dalit man called Dinesh Kumar was killed by cattle-smugglers when they crushed him under their cattle-laden truck because he tried to stop them from stealing his cow. The incident happened in Firozabad district.
There are many another incidents like this. However, the mainstream media deliberately ignored such incidents because it doesn’t suit their agenda.
Now, coming back to the deaths caused by lynchings, what Yogi government has done in Uttar Pradesh would silence the media and other self-declared intellectuals who are trying to explain the lynchings. Considering the fact that Uttar Pradesh has the largest population in India, the maximum number of cases should have emerged from there, but we haven’t heard of any major case ever since the Yogi government has come to power. The last one, Akhlaq lynching case happened under the Akhilesh government. In an interview with Times of India, CM Yogi said, “Had we not closed down illegal slaughterhouses in UP, there would have been a maximum number of mob lynching in UP. We are happy that no such incident took place here”. He further said, “It should be obligatory on every state to crack down on such incidents. However, people should respect each other’s sentiments. The worst case of mob lynching was witnessed in 1984, on the streets of Delhi”.
Chief ministers of other states should also take such bold steps and must address the root cause of the problem in order to curb the menace of mob-lynching and illegal cow smuggling.