The Congress, which, till recently, was claiming the moral high ground by denouncing violence unleashed by gau rakshaks, has done a complete u-turn. Having thrown its secular credentials out of the window, it’s playing the Hindutva card with impunity.
Its newly-elected government in Madhya Pradesh has slapped the stringent National Security Act (NSA) against three men accused of killing a cow at Khandwa. The Act allows preventive detention for months, if authorities are satisfied that the person is a threat to national security or law and order.
How the three men are a threat to national security or law and order is yet to be explained by both the police and the Congress government. The state government is playing to the gallery to “show” the people that it has a no-nonsense attitude towards cow slaughter.
In other words it’s following in the footsteps of the BJP to hold on to power. The Congress’s “concern” about the well-being of the cows has begun only recently. The fact of the matter is Chief Minister Kamal Nath’s government doesn’t want to take any risk by appearing to be soft on the accused.
In MP, the cow slaughter ban has been in force since 2004 when the BJP was in power. It was further strengthened by the BJP with the amendment, called the Madhya Pradesh Prohibition of Slaughter of Cow-progeny (amendment) Bill, which was passed in 2012.
The law passed in 2012 stipulated that killing a cow would carry a seven-year jail term. Besides, the onus would be on the accused to prove his innocence. With such stringent laws in place, what was the need for NSA? Is CM Nath competing with former CM Shivraj Singh Chouhan’s government, which had repeatedly invoked the NSA on cow slaughter charges?