A self-proclaimed cow vigilante assaulted a loco pilot in Gujarat’s Mehsana district after the train ran over a cow, The Times of India reported on Tuesday. The incident took place on Saturday when GA Jhala ignored a red flag waved by the Sidhpur junction stationmaster, and rammed the train into a cow that had jumped on to the track.
Jhala was operating the Gwalior-Ahmedabad superfast train. A passenger, identified as 28-year-old Bipinsingh Rajput, started abusing Jhala when he contacted railway staff to remove the carcass from the track. Soon, a mob of 150 cow vigilantes gathered at the spot and threatened Jhala. Rajput assaulted Jhala at Kamli and Unjha junctions. When the train driver got down at Mehsana to seek help from the police, Rajput attacked him once again.
The Railway Police took Rajput into custody. He has been booked for voluntarily causing hurt, deterring a public servant from carrying out his duties, provoking breach of peace, and criminal intimidation.
Police officers said Rajput was angry because he thought the railway staff would cut the carcass to dispose it off. “When railway personnel told him they were just removing the dead animal, he got belligerent and began asking them how they could kill a cow,” Mehsana GRP inspector Vinod Jaiswal told The Times of India. “He then assaulted the loco pilot.”
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