Dozens Cows Found Dead In Govt-Run Gaushala In UP, Who Is Responsible?

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Dozens of cows found dead in a govt-run gaushala in Lalitpur district of UP. Photo: Twitter

India Tomorrow

NEW DELHI—Reports of deaths of cows keep coming in from the gaushalas, or cow shelters, both from the state run as well as trusts run by private groups in Uttar Pradesh where the state government has made the anti-cow slaughter laws tougher ever since chief priest of Gorakhnath Math in Gorakhpur became state’s chief minister. Yogi government in June this year brought the Uttar Pradesh Cabinet Cow Slaughter Prevention (Amendment) Ordinance, 2020, providing rigorous imprisonment for 10 and a fine of Rs. 5 lakh to prevent cow slaughter in the state.

Adityanath, after becoming chief minister, also cracked down on illegal abattoir and made it a crime to store and eat cow meat in the state. But

In the latest incident, dozens of cows were found dead under mysterious circumstances in a gaushala in Sojanavillage of Lailtpur district on December 17.

Congress spokesperson Pankhudi Pathak, in a video she tweeted on Saturday, said that dozens of cows were found dead in government cattle shelter despite crores ofruppes spent by the state government.

She said that the gaushalas all over the state are in a shamble. “Cows are dying due to cold but those doing politics in the name of cows are sitting in the comfort of their homes. They are nowhere to be seen”, she said in the tweet.

 But it is not for the first time that the death of cows in gaushala have been reported in UP.

In July 2017, as many as 152 cows were reported to have died in just one week in state’s biggest gaushala in Kanpur that receives crores of rupees in donation for maintaining cows every year. Veterinary doctors conducting post-mortem on the dead cows said that the cattle died of starvation, indicating that the cows were not provided fodder and this resulted in their death. However, nothing happened in the case because of political connection of those running the gaushala.

According to a statement given by the UP Animal Husbandry Minister Laxmi Narayan Chaudhary in the state assembly, as many as 9261 ‘govansh’(cows and oxen) had died in UP’s government-run gaushalas. The minister said that the cause of death were natural causes. When questioned by the Opposition leader Ram Govind Chodhuary, the minister said that no post-mortem of the cattle having died in gaushalas were conducted. This put a question mark over the claim of the minister that the deaths of the cattle was due to natural causes.

UP government had allotted a budget of Rs. 600 crore in 2019-20 for maintaining cow shelters. It also imposed a cess of two per cent on purchase of been and India Made Foreign Liquor to create a corpus for cow protection.

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