New Delhi: Union minister Pratap Chandra Sarangi on Thursday demanded that cow slaughter be treated as an offence on par with killing a human being and that offenders should be sentenced to rigorous imprisonment of a minimum of 15 years, reported The Hindu.
Sarangi, 64, who won the Balasore parliamentary seat in Odisha in 2019 is a minister of state in two ministries of the Narendra Modi government: micro, small and medium enterprises and animal husbandry, dairying and fisheries.
Speaking about the death of 28 cattle when a truck that was transporting them overturned due to an accident in Balasore district, Sarangi told media persons at his official residence in New Delhi on Thursday, “When I was in Kolkata this morning, I heard the news. I have spoken to top officers in Odisha. I can without any doubts say the cattle were being taken to be slaughtered in abattoirs of Kolkata and Bangladesh.”
Three persons were also killed in the road accident on national highway-60 near Basta. The truck was believed to be carrying over 60 cattle
Sarangi also wrote a letter to Odisha chief minister Naveen Patnaik and called on him to amend the Orissa Prevention of Cow Slaughter Act 1960. “As per the Act, there is provision of two years of jail term for those who kill cow and abet killing them. Nobody knows how many have been punished under this provision,” Sarangi said and demanded that like Karnataka, the provision of 15 years rigorous imprisonment be made for cow slaughter.
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The first time MP also demanded punishment for the accused who, according to him, were illegally transporting the bovines in the truck that overturned. He also asked Patnaik to issue instructions to the DGP and the district administrations to step up surveillance and institute a robust ground-level intelligence gathering system to prevent cases of illegal trafficking of cattle in the state.
Sarangi further alleged that illegal trafficking of cattle had become rampant in Odisha because of tacit support from agencies that are supposed to enforce the laws.
In recent years, the idea of cow protectionism or cow vigilantism has lead to a number of lynchings, nearly all of them resulting in grievous harm done to members of the Muslim or Dalit communities. A report by a Delhi-based NGO in 2019 found that a majority of police personnel also endorsed encounter killings and punishment by a mob for cow slaughter.
Sarangi, who was formerly the state convener of the Bajrang Dal in Odisha, has been previously arrested in connection with the death of Australian missionary Graham Staines and his two minor sons in a Keonjhar village in 1999. In March 2002, when Sarangi was state president of the Bajrang Dal – a hardline Hindu youth group affiliated with the RSS – he was arrested by Odisha police on charges of rioting, arson, assault and damaging government property.
Sarangi’s election affidavit also reveals that he faces seven pending criminal cases – for criminal intimidation, rioting, promoting enmity between groups on grounds of religion, race, etc., and extortion, among others.
Sarangi – who is popularly known as the “Modi of Odisha” – had in 2019 also questioned whether those who refused to say “Vande Mataram” had a right to live in the country after Samajwadi Party MP Shafiqur Rahman Barq refused to say “Vande Mataram” during his oath-taking ceremony, arguing that it was “against Islam”.