Stray Cattle Menace Continues To Rise In UP As Cops Closing Cases Against Farmers

Unprecedented scenes are playing out in Uttar Pradesh, especially in the rural areas among the agerian communities.

Cows, revered as Gods and a lifeline of many is now turning out to be a financial burden and a threat to their crops.

The stray cattle menace across the state has gone so much out of control to a point where farmers are now locking up the abandoned cows in anywhere from government offices, schools and hospitals to save their crops.

BCCL

In the past two months there have been more than half a dozen incidents where framers across UP have locked up hundreds of cows inside government buildings forcing the authorities to take note.

Despite the Yogi Adityanath government ordering tough action against those abandoning the cows on the streets, according to reports the cops are finding it difficult to act against the angry farmers.

The Indian Express reports that in most of the cases that have been registered so far for locking up cows, the Police have not been able to make any progress.

AFP

In one of the cases in Auraiya where a police complaint was filed against villagers on January 26 for locking up cows in a government school.

The case was registered on the complaint of the school principal. But now it has been closed after the two sides reached on a ¡°compromise¡±.

In other cases the cops have expressed their helplessness citing the lack of eye witnesses in the case.

For many this is an indication of the direction the cops have been forced to take, to go slow on the cases as there is still much anger among the farmers over the growing cattle menace.

Across the state, thousands of farmers have been forced to stay awake to guard their farms 24/7 to save their crops to the cattle. Many who could afford to do it have also erected fences around their fields to keep the strays away, punching a hole on the slender margin of profit they make selling the produce.

REUTERS

¡°We already had enough problems and now the government has created one more. For the first time, we¡¯ve been forced to stay in the fields to protect our crops,¡± Baburao Saini, a farmer from Kakripur village told Reuters.

The farmers blame the sudden spike in the number of strays on the street on the Yogi Government's crackdown on cattle trade.

Earlier, the farmers used to sell their unproductive cattle in local market and slaughterhouses. But since the crackdown many of these markets have been shut down completely. This has left the farmers with no option but to leave them on the streets as they find it impossible to take care of them.

¡°The government clearly did not think of alternatives before putting these curbs in place. As Hindus, we treat cows as sacred but these unwarranted measures have upended the economics of farming,¡± Deepak Chaudhary, who grows wheat on the outskirts of Mathura told Reuters.

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¡°Forget about cows, we cannot sell even a single animal to even our relatives thanks to cow vigilante groups which are aided and abetted by the BJP,¡± he added.

With the general elections just around the corner, cow protection, the populist wave on which the BHP rode to power in UP is turning against them. The party however says it is committed to cow protection and that the crackdown was only against illegal slaughterhouses.

¡°The government has only enforced the laws by closing down unlicensed abattoirs and cracking down on cattle smuggling. We¡¯re not trying to hurt either any community or the rural economy,¡± BJP spokesman Gopal Krishna Agarwal said.

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But this has not convinced farmers.

¡°We have been at the receiving end of anti-farmer policies of the government and the problem of stray cattle is just another blow to us. Unlike the previous general election, farmers are not solidly behind Modi, who¡¯s on shaky ground this time round,¡± Amar Chand, a from Maholi village who voted for Modi in 2014 said.