Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Raman Singh on Saturday said “those who kill cows will be hanged” in his state, reported NDTV. He made the statement when he was asked whether his government would frame strict laws to stop cow slaughter. “Have you ever heard of such a thing in Chhattisgarh in the past 15 years,” he said.
Singh is not the first to suggest such an extreme step for killing cows. On March 25, senior BJP leader Subramanian Swamy introduced a Private Members’ Bill in the Rajya Sabha that, among other things, seeks a death penalty for those who slaughter cows. Swamy’s Cow Protection Bill, 2017, lists a number of measures on controlling the animal’s killing and suggests punishments for rule-breakers. The Bill will come up for hearing later during the session.
Singh’s statement comes a day after the Bharatiya Janata Party government in Gujarat amended its cow protection law to introduce life term punishment for slaughtering cows. “Protection of cows is the single-most important principle towards saving the whole world from both moral and spiritual degradation,” Chief Minister Vijay Rupani said in a series of tweets on Friday. “The Gujarat Bharatiya Janata Party government understands the importance and values of the cow and that is the reason for the Bill.”
On March 26, a BJP legislator in Uttar Pradesh said he would break the limbs of those who kill cows. Adityanath, the new CM of the state has ordered a crackdown on illegal slaughterhouses and meat shops. On March 21, three meat shops owned by members of the Muslim community were set ablaze in Hathras.
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