Thread by @SatyaAnveshak

Cow is worshipped by Hindus as their mother.

It gives milk+other byproducts & serves us throughout its life but in return we're not even able to save it from a painful slaughter - so much for being a mother?

A #thread on 'गोरक्षा' (cow protection) and truths & myths behind it

Since Vedic age Hindus have considered Cows sacred.

Killing of cow was prohibited and strictest form of punishment was laid out for anyone who dares to break this norm.

Cows were associated with many of the Hindu Gods. Bhagwaan Shri Krishna spent his childhood as cowherd.

In-spite of Hindu sentiments attached to it - cow theft, smuggling & illegal slaughter is rampant throughout India.

Thousands of armed, vicious and deadly criminals are involved in this crime syndicate.

India-Bangladesh (BD) border is the hub of cross border cattle smuggling.

India & Bangladesh

👉Share ~4000 Kms of border - quite porous at many places with rural roads, rivers, hills etc that makes it an ideal ground for cattle smuggling
👉5,000-15,000 cows are smuggled every day
👉Illegal cross-border trade is worth more than USD 1.5 billion / year

Bangladesh requires 70 lakh tonnes of meat annually but produces under 60.

Shortage & high demand make cattle smuggling a very profitable proposition.

A cow that fetches INR 20K in India can get up to 40K in BD.

Another market is illegal slaughterhouses (>30,000) within India.

Once stolen cows go through worst form of abuse on their way to slaughterhouse.

👉Cramped into trucks/lorries - many dies out of suffocation & injuries
👉To force them stomp the fencing - nails are lodged, chilli/petrol inserted or acid thrown in to their genitals

Uff, human!

👉 Tied to ropes, cranes in most horrific ways to shunt them across the barbed wire fence

Our thousands of years old civilisation taught us to respect cows as mother but look at what we have done to our value system? How can we be so ignorant & indifferent?

Prize for a mother?

In Bengaluru (Jul'18) smugglers tried to drag a cow after tying its legs.

Sadly it got caught in barbed wires & died - later on it was found by its owner in a pool of blood with its legs tied & body entangled in the barbed wire fencing.

Such horrific stories are not uncommon.

The gang of beef mafia are fearless and have no inhibitions in using violent means (shooting, stabbing or crushing under the wheel) against anyone who tries to obstruct their way.

Then it does not matter whether it is a,
- cattle owner
- police
- BSF
- gau-rakshak
- media

Once a cattle is stolen, farmers lose their source of livelihood and whole family suffers badly.

Hence, to protect their cattle from theft, farmers in many villages across India have formed small local groups for vigilante called 'Gau-rakshaks' (protectors of cows).

Unfortunately, attempts are made to show gau-rakshaks as fanatics looking to attack Muslims. In reality, it is a socio-economic issue where they're in a struggle against an armed & dangerous mafia to protect their,

- source of livelihood
- property
- children and their families

In most cases, cow protectors confront anyone who is trying to steal animals or transporting cattle suspiciously.

They do not look for a particular religion while doing so.

Mostly gau-rakshaks act as 'police informers' & hand over the culprits to police if catch them.

Cases of uncontrolled mob frenzy where cow smugglers is killed are negligible and are projected way out of proportion to sensationalise the issue.

Always stated as H-M issue which is not the case though most of the criminals involved belong to Muslim community.

Nobody maintains a list of dead victims if they are,
👉Poor farmers trying to save their cattle
👉Policemen on duty
👉BSF men at border (78 BSF jawans sustained injuries trying to prevent cattle smuggling in 2014)
👉Officers, activists & innocent citizens who reported such crimes

As for elite (fake) journalists,
- reporting about poor victims murdered by beef mafia does not suit their agenda
- it carries no sensational value hence ignored
- maligning country's reputation is OK

A fake narrative is created which traps everyone alike out of sheer ignorance.

Cattle smugglers know only 1 rule-'kill mercilessly' whoever stands in their way

Few examples from last 3-4 yrs:
💀7/Feb/14: killed 2 villagers in Bareilly who raised alarm against theft
💀1/May/14: Aabid & Umar fired at villagers & police in Baliwas, Gurgaon before being caught

💀20/Feb/15: killed 2 policemen in Mathura, UP when they tried to arrest a vehicle carrying cows
💀10/Sep/15: shot dead SI Manoj Mishra in Bareilly, Faridpur
💀10/Oct/15: Moh Imtiaz killed Bajrang Dal member Prashant Poojary for preventing illegal cow slaughter & transportation

💀9/Jan/16: killed BSF constable in West Bengal
💀1/Jun/16: killed 16 yr old girl who confronted cow thieves in Etah, Agra
💀6/Jun/16: Jakib & Itikar killed chowkidar Data Ram on suspecion of police informer in Azamgarh

💀19/Jun/16: killed Dinesh Kumar when he tried to stop smugglers in Firozabad.

After finding his cattle missing from the barn, he rushed towards the truck where they were getting loaded. Smugglers ran the truck over him killing poor dalit man on the spot.

💀5/Aug/16: ran pick-up van over a 56 yr old constable Triloki Tiwari in Jaunpur, UP
💀2/Nov/16: shot dead a woman for catching smugglers in Asrauli village, Etah, UP
💀25/Jun/17: Ehsaan ran over a vehicle at police in Shajahanpur, UP

💀2/Jul/17: shot dead a farmer, Charan Singh who tried to save his buffalo in Kotrekapura village, Agra
💀16/Oct/17: killed BSF commander Deepak K Mondal who was trying to stop smuggling along the India-BD border in Tripura

💀14/Aug/18: brutally killed 2 Hindu sadhus for opposing cow slaughter near temple in Auriya district, UP.

Salman, Nadeem, Shahzas, Najeem & Jabbar on the night of 14th Aug attacked 3 sadhus in their sleep inside the temple, tied them to their cots and beaten them brutally.

They chopped tongues off & slit throats of two of the sadhus Lajjaram & Hariram to give warning to people who complain against cow smuggling.

Such is the brazenness & disrespect for law!
Such is the agony of the people who try to save mother cow from slaughter in secular India!

Go-rakshaks are ordinary, innocent Hindus who,
- risk their lives to save cows
- upholds dharma by sacrificing personal comforts

They need your support not indifference🙏

If we don't stand with them today, the day will not be far away when our future gen will host beef parties.

दोहन अथवा शोषण?

Why Hindus respect cow as their mother cannot be understood from Abrahamic lens.

Vedic philosophy believes in preservation of natural resources whereas Abrahmic theology says God created universe to the benefit of man & he can consume them as he wishes to.

In medieval times, Islamic invaders slayed cows to prove 'might of Islam'.

When innocent Hindu lives did not matter to them how could anyone expect mercy for cows from them?

To pass a political message they committed cow slaughter inside the temples.

Few examples:
👉 Muh Bin Qasim killed a cow & publicly soiled the idol by throwing cow meat on it (8th century)
👉Aurangzeb desecrated Chintamani Parshvanath Jain temple near Sarashpur, Gujrat by killing a cow inside the temple and converted it into a mosque (1645)

👉Ahmad shah Durrani attacked the Golden Temple in Amritsar and filled its sacred pool with the blood of slaughtered cows (1756-57)

Kings in Bharat always worked for the protection & care for cows.

Cow slaughter was banned by Maharaja Ranjit Singh, Maharana Pratap, Shivaji Maharaj and many other influential Hindu/Sikh kings.

During their times it was a capital offence to slaughter a cow.

Post independence:
In 1955 Congress parliamentarian Seth Govind Das drafted a bill for a nationwide ban on cow slaughter but India's 1st PM Jawaharlal Nehru opposed it and even threatened to resign if the members goes in favour of the bill.

It failed by a vote of 95 to 12.

In 1966, Jayaprakash Narayan wrote a letter to then PM Indra Gandhi to ban cow slaughter.

Many Hindu organisations also started an agitation to demand the ban.

But sadly Indra Gandhi did not accept it.

Court:
In 1958 a lawsuit was filed by Qureshi saying cow slaughter ban law by state govt is an infringement on Muslims rights.

The Supreme Court said that none of the Islamic text mandates cow slaughter. A total ban did not infringe any rights given under Articles 25 or 48.

Present:
India is the largest beef exporter in the world (with Brazil) & ranks 5th in production.

Export:
~1.85 mi metric tons in 2016 (18% of world)
Consumption:
~2.1 mi metric tons in 2015 (3.7% of world)

Buffalo meat (boneless) is a major constituent of beef trade by India

Beef also includes meat of cow, oxen & calf.

As cow is considered sacred (mother) by Hindus, its slaughter hurts their sentiments deeply.

20 out of 29 states in India have imposed partial or full ban on cow slaughter.

What next:
Our apathy has given rise to this situation. We call Bharat a Hindu land but are not being able to save someone we consider equivalent to mother?

Where has gone our पुरुषार्थ?

Why should we tolerate someone who wants to kill & eat our mother?

In Kashi one Nandi is still standing dejected looking towards disappeared Shiva temple.

In Bharat millions of mother cows are looking towards us to save them from slaughter.

Let us be a society which does not remain mum on a murder of mom (gau-mata)!

#TotalBanOnCowSlauther