PM Narendra Modi’s remarks against cow vigilantes were made in Gujarat, his home state, which votes soon, and a day after people across the country protested against mob attacks.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi today said that the killing of people by cow vigilantes is unacceptable. “Killing people in the name of Gau Bhakti is not acceptable,” he said, stressing, “No person in this nation has the right to take the law in his or her own hands in this country.” While saying that protecting cows, sacred for Hindus, is needed – “No one spoke about protecting cows more than Mahatma Gandhi and Acharya Vinoba Bhave,” he said, “this (violence) is not something Mahatma Gandhi would approve of.”
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His remarks today were made at Mahatma Gandhi’s Sabarmati Ashram in Gujarat, his home state, which votes soon, and a day after people across the country protested against mob attacks.
Last week, a group of people on a train killed 16-year-old Junaid Khan, who was traveling home to his village in Haryana with his brother and two cousins after a shopping excursion to Delhi ahead of Eid.
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A group of about 20 men accused the teen and his companions of carrying beef in their bags and yelled religious slurs at them before they beat Junaid Khan and stabbed him to death. He was thrown off the train.
“What the PM has said is fine, but these people don’t stop,” said the killed teen’s father, Jalaluddin Khan.
PM Narendra Modi’s remarks today were made at Mahatma Gandhi’s Sabarmati Ashram in Gujarat.
PM Modi has been targeted by critics for not condemning the growing list of attacks by self-declared cow vigilantes, many of them in states governed by his party, the BJP. In one of them, Rajasthan, a 55-year-old named Pehlu Khan, was beaten relentlessly in April for transporting cows for his dairy farm after his assaulters accused him of smuggling the cows illegally. He died of his wounds.
The opposition said that the PM’s words are welcome, but the onus is on his government to ensure they result in action.
PM Narendra Modi offered a similar admonishment last year in August.