Shiv Kumar

Tribune News Service

Mumbai, August 6

A group of nine gau rakshaks were beaten up by a mob of more than 50 people while they were trying to halt a tempo allegedly carrying cows to an illegal slaughterhouse.

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According to the state police, the gau rakshaks led by one Shivshankar Rajendra Swami of the Akhil Bhartiya Krushi Gau Seva Sangh intercepted the truck carrying cows at Shrigonda on the Daund-Ahmednagar road on Saturday night. Swami and his group then took the owner of the tempo, Wahid Shaikh and the driver Raju Shaikh, to the police station where a case under the Maharashtra Animal Preservation Act was filed against

them.



Meanwhile, the owner of the tempo alerted his associates who descended on the area and thrashed the group of gau rakshaks as soon as they came out of the police station. Swami, who claims to be an honorary animal welfare officer appointed by the government, in an FIR filed, with the police said the gau rakshaks suffered injuries after being attacked with sharp weapons.



According to Sudarshan Munde, Deputy Superintendent of Police, Ahmednagar the police are still investigating the allegations. “Both parties have filed cross complaints against each other,” Munde said. Swami and his group have filed more than 300 complaints of illegal cow transportation and slaughter in Pune and Ahmednagar districts of Maharashtra.



Meanwhile the Akhil Bhartiya Krushi Gau Seva Sangh claimed that animal markets are held in the Kashti village in Ahmednagar district where cows are sold for slaughter. The group claimed that two cows and ten oxen were rescued from the tempo.