Gau goons thrash six cattle traders in Delhi, FIR lodged

A few days after Prime Minister Narendra Modi ‘warned’ gau rakshaks while speaking at the centenary celebrations of the Sabarmati Ashram in Ahmedabad, at least six cattle traders were thrashed by a group of unidentified men in East Delhi on Friday evening.

A group of unidentified men, according to reports, intercepted some minitrucks transporting about 80 buffaloes to a slaughter house and starting beating them up near Baba Haridas Nagar in outer Delhi. The attackers released all the buffaloes and fled from the spot, leaving all the traders injured and the vehicles vandalised. The injured were taken to a nearby hospital and were discharged later. However, once of the injured, Ali Jaan, 40, is said to have received serious injuries. His son has filed an FIR against unidentified persons.

This came as a grim reminder of the incident where a minor Muslim boy returning from Eid shopping was killed by a similar group of unidentified men aboard a train in Delhi recently. The assaulters reportedly accused the minor of being a beef-eater and thrashed and stabbed him to death.

“Killing people in the name of ‘gau bhakti’ is not acceptable. This is not something Mahatma Gandhi would approve,” Modi said breaking his silence on growing incidence of cow vigilantism after a man accused of carrying beef was allegedly beaten to death by a mob in Jharkhand's Ramgarh district on June 30.

There is a growing spate of such mob killings of Dalits and Muslims in the name of cow—which is considered as sacred animal by the Hindus—since BJP has come to power at the Centre. Sanjiv Bhat, former IPS officer, tweeted a list of 53 mob lynching incidents that took place since 2014: