A day after the ‘Not in my name’ protests were held across the country in the wake of 16-year-old Hafiz Junaid’s brutal killing by a lynch mob, the PM Narendra Modi on Thursday said that killing people in the name of cows is not acceptable.
PM Modi was speaking at the centenary celebrations of the Sabarmati Ashram in Ahmedabad.
Invoking Gandhi, he said “Mahatma Gandhi would never approve of cow vigilantism. We are the land of non-violence.”
He reiterated that killing a human being is not gau raksha and that there is no place for violence in our society.
“Cow vigilantism doesn’t give us the right to kill anyone. Violence is not the answer to our problems,” he said.
He said killing in the name of Gau Bhakti is unacceptable and no one has the right to take law into their own hands.
This is not the first time he has spoken out against gau rakshaks.
In August 2016, PM Modi had targeted gau rakshaks and said he felt enraged by them because they were hiding their misdeeds in the name of cow protection.
He had made the statement after several incidents of violence had been reported where Dalits and Muslims were targeted in the name of cow protection.
Cows don't die because of murder but by consuming plastic from garbage. People should stop throwing plastic if they really want to do gau-seva, Modi had said.
On the evening of June 22, Junaid was inside a Mathura-bound train when an argument over seats took a communal turn and subsequently led to his death.
The attackers allegedly called Junaid and four others “beef eaters” and “anti-nationals” and threw their skull caps on the floor. As per the statement given by the four injured, the assailants also pulled their beards and called them “mulla”.