MEERUT: One of western UP's top cow catchers , ' Gau Rakshak ' Sudarshan Chakra Maharaj has said Mohammed Akhlaq 's brutal end was a natural outcome of trade in and consumption of beef . Chillingly, he added that such incidents will continue to happen if the government ignores cow slaughter.

Maharaj, who has turned over more than 1,000 “cow smugglers” and “cow slaughterers” to the police in the past 10 years, and says that last month his team of volunteers tipped off the police about 25 such instances, said, “If people protecting cows have no government to listen to and they get lathicharged by the police instead, the consequences will be disastrous. You saw what happened in Dadri. There is a lot of anger among the people, and an outburst is only natural.”

A fan of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Maharaj is irked by the flak the PM has drawn after the Dadri incident. “The PM is a good man doing good work. Those who criticize his silence don’t realize that he has important things to do. Sometimes we think our local issues are important, but he has foreign affairs to look after as well. While some people are upset, the PM is ensuring that our bonds with the world grow stronger.”

Following the Dadri incident, 50-year-old Maharaj, who heads the VHP’s Gau Rakshak Samiti in eight districts, is restless, but he is also relentless. Sitting in an office aptly named 'Bharat Mata Mandir', he recounted one of his exploits and said, “In 2005, I was posted in Saharanpur by the Sangh. Once, our volunteers intercepted a vehicle carrying smuggled cattle. Things turned ugly when the smugglers fired at us. One of our volunteers got injured. After that incident, I gave them instructions to not take the law in their hands. We inform the police every time we come to know about such incidents. We have a strong network among locals who provide us information on these matters.”

But not all policemen, Maharaj said, are trustworthy. “I had filed an RTI query once and I found out that not a single person has been booked for cow slaughter in Meerut district in the last five years. This despite the fact that there has been a steep rise in such cases in the recent past. The police often take a cut from those who are in the beef business. In today’s time when joint family system has given way to nuclear families, people don’t have the time to take care of their cows anymore, and, hence, they choose to sell them. Since people try to dispose of the animal at low prices, even smugglers started buying cows. When police on duty don’t cooperate, we approach their bosses. They lathicharge us for protesting peacefully against cow slaughter.”

Maharaj, who left his home in Haryana when he was 13 to join the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), says he has no home. His office, which is adorned with pictures of his idols such as M S Golwalkar and K B Hedgewar, is where he lives. Asked how he goes about fulfilling his life’s mission and what the term “cow-protection” means to him, he said, “For us, cow-protection has to be done in phases. In the first phase, it should be ensured that the animals are not caught by those who wish to slaughter them and sell the meat. In the second phase, it should be ensured that the cow finds a good home. We have a small office space, and so we cannot keep the animals here. We have tied up with several cow shelters across several districts. I have asked my volunteers to donate Rs 2 every month to such cowsheds. We also hand the cows over to farmers who can take care of them.”

Maharaj said he always talks to people about the value of cow. “The buffalo gives more milk than the cow. Goat’s milk can even cure dengue. Then why do we consider the cow our mata (mother)? That is because everything related to the cow can sustain life. From milk to excreta like urine and dung, they are all valuable. Like a mother, the cow sustains us.”

