Members in the Rajya Sabha on Thursday expressed grave concern over the killing of a man in Alwar district of Rajasthan by a mob of cow vigilantes, with Deputy Chairman P.J. Kurien asking the government to probe it and inform the House about the facts.
Raising the issue during the Zero Hour, Congress member Madhusudan Mistry said there was a “complete breakdown of law and order” in Rajasthan as “a gang of gau-rakshaks (cow vigilantes)” stopped a truck carrying cattle and mercilessly thrashed four of its occupants after letting off the “Hindu” truck driver. One of them succumbed to injuries later.
But Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi squarely rejected the allegations and said it was a very sensitive issue, but “no such incident has happened, the way the matter is being presented here.”
“A message should not be sent out that the House supports cow slaughter,” he said, and added that “the state government has refuted (the allegations). We do not justify hooliganism.”
Members of other opposition parties joined the issue with Mr. Mistry claiming similar incidents were taking place in Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat as also Uttar Pradesh, all ruled by BJP.
Leader of Oppositon and senior Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad said “I am extremely sorry that the minister is so ill-informed. Even the New York Times has reported (on it) and the minister does not know… I have not come across such an insensitive government.”
Amid contradictory statements about the alleged incident by the Opposition and the Government, Mr. Kurien said the Chair has to be convinced whether the issue raised by Congress member Madhusudan Mistry was true or not.
“The Minister said no such an incident happened,” Mr. Kurien said adding that there were two versions of the incident which have been brought before him.
Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi warned that such incidents will have “very severe consequences for the country”. He also accused the Prime Minister of “propagating a vision where only one idea will prevail”. “This is a new vision for India that Narendra Modiji is propagating. It is a vision where only one idea will prevail and any other idea, anybody who does not listen to or agree with PM Modi or RSS has no place in India,” Mr. Gandhi told reporters outside parliament.
