The Delhi High Court on Thursday sought the response of
the Centre and the Delhi government on a plea seeking direction to authorities
to take steps to stop cow slaughter in the national capital.
The petition sought a court direction to authorities
for a separate cow protection cell in every district of Delhi.
A bench of Chief Justice Satish Chandra Sharma and
Justice Subramonium Prasad issued notices to the Centre, the Delhi government
and the Delhi Police after hearing the petition. It granted six weeks to the
authorities to file counter affidavits or status reports in the matter and
listed it for further hearing on May 17.
During the hearing on Thursday, Additional Solicitor
General Chetan Sharma and central government standing counsel Ajay Digpaul
submitted that "it is a genuine case and cow is respected in this
country".
Petitioner Ajay Gautam said there are 15 districts in
Delhi which have over 200 police stations, 52 police posts with a strength of
about 80,000 police personnel.
"Only 38,000 police persons are deputed in police
stations and rest of the strength is deputed in battalion and other units.
Despite the presence of such a huge force, there have been rampant incidents of
cow slaughter in Delhi," the plea claimed.
It alleged that Mewat in Haryana, about 85 km from
Delhi, is infamous for cow slaughter and people from the area smuggle cattle
out of Delhi and take them to Mewat to slaughter them.
"In fact, incidents of cow torture and slaughter
increase manifold during Bakra-Eid when cow-smugglers break horns of cows and
dump innocent animals in their tempos after throwing red-chilly in their
eyes.... Whenever a person who reveres the holy cow as his mother, witnesses
such incidents of ill-treatment and tortures of cows, it becomes impossible for
him to tolerate it and sometimes situation gone out of control," the plea
said.
In many cases, the plea added, the "gau
sevaks" reach the crime scene first and the police arrive later.
"Impounding of vehicles transporting cow's meat
is a very common occurrence," it said, adding that often this results in
communal tension in the area.
The petition said the Delhi Police is empowered to
make a special cell or unit for protection of cows to avoid conflict between
cow smugglers and gau sewaks under the Delhi Police Act.