NEW DELHI: The Delhi High Court on Thursday sought the response of the Centre as well as the government on a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) petition to stop cow slaughtering in the national capital and demanding separate cow protection cells in all the districts of Delhi city.
Hearing the PIL, a bench presided over by Chief Justice Satish Chandra Sharma and comprising Justice Subramonium Prasad issued notices to the Centre, the Delhi government, and the Delhi Police while granting them six weeks to file replies in the matter. The high court will hear the matter again on May 17.
"My intention for filing this PIL is to stop the clashes that repeatedly break out between the two sides," Petitioner Ajay Gautam, claiming to be an activist, told the court.
The plea also claimed, in many cases, the "gau sevaks" (self-styled cow protectors) reach the crime scene first and the police arrive later.
Additional Solicitor General Chetan Sharma and Centre's standing counsel Ajay Digpaul, during the hearing, submitted that "it is a genuine case and the cow is respected in this country."
It was submitted that 15 districts in Delhi have over 200 police stations and 52 police posts with a strength of about 80,000 police personnel.
"Only 38,000 police persons are deputed in police stations and the rest of the strength is deputed in battalions and other units. Despite the presence of such a huge force, there have been rampant incidents of cow slaughter in Delhi," the plea claimed.
It alleged that Mewat in Haryana, about 85 km from Delhi, is infamous for cow slaughter and people from the area smuggle cattle out of Delhi and take them to Mewat to slaughter them.
"Incidents of cow torture and slaughter increase manifold during Bakra-Eid when cow-smugglers break horns of cows and dump innocent animals in their tempos after throwing red-chilly in their eyes.." the plea read adding that "Whenever a person who reveres the holy cow as his mother, witnesses such incidents of ill-treatment and tortures of cows, it becomes impossible for him to tolerate it and sometimes situation has gone out of control."
"Impounding of vehicles transporting cow's meat is a very common occurrence," it said, adding that often this results in communal tension in the area.
The petition said the Delhi Police is empowered to make a special cell or unit for the protection of cows to avoid conflict between cow smugglers and gau sevaks under the Delhi Police Act.