New Delhi: A fortnight after former Gujarat deputy chief minister Nitin Patel was injured by a stray cow while leading a Bharatiya Janata Party ‘Tiranga Yatra’ or tricolour march in Kadi town of Mehsana district, reports have come in on two more such incidents from the area.
According to media reports, stray cows attacked two youths in separate incidents on August 28. The video of one of the young men – on a bike while being attacked by a stray cow – has gone viral.
“In the video, the youth is seen slowly riding past the animal when it first chases after him and knocks him down with its horns. The youth then tries to escape, but the animal gorges him and stomps on him several times. Passers-by try to rescue the youth but the cow refuses to leave him Finally when people start (started) pelting stones, the animal leaves him,” said a Times of India report.
The news report, quoting police, said the youth had been identified but has not filed a complaint yet.
“The injured youth was rushed to a hospital”, the report said, adding, “Sources said this was the second incident in Kadi. Another youth was attacked by a cow at 2 am.”
Patel, the former deputy chief minister in the Vijay Rupani cabinet, suffered a fracture on a leg due to the attack by the stray cow in Kadi. Incidents of stray cows attacking passers-by, in some cases even causing deaths, have been on the rise across Gujarat.
On August 24, after the Gujarat high court came down heavily on the state government and the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (AMC) on the need to control stray cattle in urban areas and directed it to take urgent steps, the administration in the state capital impounded over 400 stray cows and transferred them to pounds.
“The AMC has decided not to release the impounded cattle for three months, as per the commitment it gave to the high court,” said a news report.
This January, hearing the petition for the need to control stray cows in urban areas, Gujarat high court Chief Justice Aravind Kumar had stated that he too had to face a similar problem with nearly a dozen cows blocking his entry into the high court premises. The judge said “enforcement agencies were not discharging their duties on this.”
Taking cognisance of the issue faced by the public in the urban areas, the state legislature had passed the Gujarat Cattle Control (Keeping and Moving) in Urban Areas Bill, 2022, in March 31. But the BJP government soon had to put it on hold as the move was objected to by the Maldhari community whose traditional occupation is cattle-rearing.
The Maldhari community has been a strong electoral base for the BJP. In July 2021 though, community leader Bhima Rabari, also the president of the Scheduled Caste Morcha of state BJP, resigned from the party questioning the government’s performance.
Soon after the Bill was passed by the BJP government, the community’s leaders declared an agitation against it. The move was led by two Congress MLAs from the community, Raghu Desai and Lakhabhai Bharwad.
With the state going to polls this December, the ruling BJP, hoping to return to power for the fifth time in a row in Gujarat, ostensibly did not wish to take a risk with the voter base within the community and put the bill on hold.