LUCKNOW: While the Supreme Court has issued a notice to the Centre and six states, including Uttar Pradesh, asking them why cow vigilante groups should not be banned to ensure peace and harmony, a group of Shia Muslims from Lucknow has come forward with an idea of forming its own ‘Gau Raksha Dal’ (cow protection squad), which would begin in UP and gradually go national, vowing to eliminate cow slaughter and make India ‘beef-free’ within a year. “Our sole aim is to dissuade the beef eaters as consumption of cow meat is an unhealthy practice,” says Gau Raksha Dal president Shamil Shamsi, who, since 2014, has been reaching out to the people of the minority community in rural areas and telling them how ‘hadith’ (sayings of Prophet Mohammad) forbade beef consumption.
The Shia youths, who launched Gau Raksha Dal in Uttar Pradesh, is hopeful of becoming a 20,000-member strong outfit in the state soon.
Laying foundation of the squad after a meeting of Shia youths at Imambara Zainuabedin in the old city of Lucknow, an epicentre of Shias and a seat of prominent Shia clergies, the outfit president Shamil Shamsisaid that he felt empowered in the present dispensation to speak his mind.
Is he is saffron inclined, or has plans to join BJP? “I am not going to join BJP. No. Not at all,” he says and hurriedly adds that with the change of dispensation now he hopes to continue his crusade without hindrance from the other minority sects.
“In previous governments, we were treated as a minority among minorities. Our voice was never heard. Every time we used to raise this issue, we were silenced by giving it sectarian colour by authorities,” says Shamsi. Aiming at expanding the squad to majority of states in coming months, Shamsi says that Islam is dead against fundamentalism. “If we are part of population, a section of which has a religious belief against consumption of beef, I think we should not keep them in pain,” he states calling every Muslim to protect cows.
On the response he is getting to his endeavour, Shamsi says it is mixed. “Some fundamentalist Muslim sections are opposing it while many others are ready to join me in my movement.” He says he will not resort to armed campaign against people indulging in cow slaughter but will try to evolve a national opinion against the practice. “We will pass on area-wise information to police administration for suitable action where cows will be slaughtered discreetly,” he says while sharing his plan of action.