Two cow-related murders — one a 25-kilometre chase before a student was shot dead and another a lynching — in two different parts of Haryana have warmed up the assembly election in the state. While Congress leader Rahul Gandhi has targeted the BJP, the latter’s state leadership has been careful to avoid the subject. Haryana Chief Minister Nayab Saini has condemned the incidents but addressed the issue more from the prism of people’s sentiments toward cows.
THE LYNCHING
A mob lynching of a migrant labourer from West Bengal — Sabir Malik — who was picked up from near the Badhra bus stand on suspicion of consuming cow meat rocked the state last month. Malik and his friend Asserudin were lured to a scrap shop near the bus stand where they were attacked. While Asserudin fled, Malik could not. He was carried away on a two-wheeler, further tortured and eventually killed.
The incident triggered fear in the Hansawas Khurd village of Charkhi Dadri district in Haryana, which is mostly occupied by migrant labourers from Bengal and Assam, many of whom have started to flee.
While five cow vigilantes have been arrested, what is shocking is that two minors have also been apprehended in the matter. A case has been registered under relevant sections of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS).
“Suspecting that the victim had eaten beef, the accused — Abhishek, Mohit, Ravinder, Kamaljit, and Sahil — called him to a shop on the pretext of selling empty plastic bottles. There, they beat him,” PTI quoted a police officer as saying.
THE 25-KM CHASE & MURDER
The end of August also witnessed another cow-related murder, this time around 174 kilometres away from Charkhi Dadri. A 19-year-old in Faridabad, Haryana, was shot dead on August 23 by a group of individuals suspected to be cow vigilantes. They pursued him under the assumption that he was surveying the area for cattle smuggling.
The police identified the victim as Aryan Mishra, a Class 12 student. Mishra had left his home at night to join five friends in an SUV. The accused chased the vehicle in which Mishra and his friends were travelling and opened fire, hitting Mishra with two bullets. According to the police, Anil Kaushik — the main suspect — is associated with an organisation called Live for Nation, which promotes cow protection. Five men were later apprehended and placed in judicial custody.
COW SENTIMENTS & HARYANA
These are not the first such murders by cow vigilantes in Haryana. The state falls in the quintessential cow belt where the animal is held in high regard and products from milk, buttermilk to butter are consumed by the entire family.
Gau Raksha Dals (cow protection groups) play a pivotal role here. They have a presence down to the tehsil level where they are regularly informed about people’s meal practices and given tip-offs about ‘suspicious behaviour’. Acharya Yogendra formed a group of ‘Gai rakshaks’ at a temple in Haryana’s Bhadra. Ravinder Sheoran, who was appointed the group president, is one of the eight accused in the Charkhi Dadri mob lynching case.
Mohit alias Monu Manesar — a self-styled cow vigilante — is a hero of sorts among cow vigilantes and was arrested by the Nuh Police last September for an alleged provocative post on social media. The Rajasthan Police also arrested him in connection with the infamous Nasir-Junaid murder case where the charred bodies of Nasir and Junaid were found in a vehicle on the Rajasthan-Haryana border on February 16 after they were allegedly abducted by some vigilantes who accused them of cow smuggling.
COW POLITICS
If such is the penetration of cow sentiments in Haryana, could the politics of the state stay detached from it, particularly in the face of an assembly election? The chief minister’s carefully chosen words illustrate a great deal. “It is not right to say things like mob lynching, because a strict law has been made in the assembly for cow protection and there is no compromise on it,” Saini told reporters when asked about the migrant worker’s murder.
The strong law he is referring to is a legislation brought by his predecessor who he also politically looks up to. In 2015, Manohar Lal Khattar enacted the Haryana Gauvansh Sanrakshan and Gausamvardhan (HGSG) Act, which banned cow trafficking, slaughter, beef possession and consumption in the state.
While the BJP would not want the spotlight on these two cases, the ongoing discussion in vernacular press helps the party, which is batting the twin demons of anti-incumbency and Jat anger. Congress’s Jat face and former CM Bhupinder Singh Hooda too has been exploiting that.
But if such incidents — particularly in the Nuh area which is largely inhabited by minorities — blur the caste lines and make people vote on religious considerations, BJP could gain from it. Even in Faridabad, the Lok Sabha constituency has 2.5 lakh Jats — the highest — followed by Gujjars and other castes.
No wonder, Rahul Gandhi’s strong words like “reign of fear” are shunned by the Hoodas or Kumari Selja — Congress’s state leadership — which knows the nuanced political situation they are dealing with. In 2017, Bhupinder Singh Hooda went to visit Khandawli, days after local boy Junaid Khan was stabbed to death by a mob on a Mathura-bound train. But, this time, he has shunned visiting Charkhi Dadri.