Cow Vigilantes Are at Risk: K’taka Min Defends Anti-Slaughter Bill

CN Ashwath Narayan also claimed that Karnataka is the only state where the cow vigilantes have lost their lives.

Image used for representational purpose.

(Photo: IANS)

Karnataka minister CN Ashwath Narayan defended the state’s new anti-cow slaughter bill saying that the cow vigilantes were at risk and that the new law ‘will embolden them.’

“Earlier, life was at risk for vigilantes... not for those who were in the (cattle) trade,” Narayan said in a conversation with NDTV.

Adding that the Bill was framed keeping in mind the vigilantes, he further said that anybody who is working for a cause and the law of the land, should definitely have a scope to work in this provision.

Narayan also claimed that Karnataka is the only state where the cow vigilantes have lost their lives and that it’s the cattle traders who are armed and not the vigilantes.

The BS Yediyurappa-led BJP government in Karnataka on 9 December passed the controversial Karnataka Prevention of Slaughter and Preservation of Cattle Bill, 2020, in the Assembly. The Bill has enforced an “almost blanket ban” on beef in the southern state.

Amid protests from the Opposition, the Bill widens the definition of “cattle” to include “cow, calf of a cow and bull, bullock and he or she buffalo” as well as beef, categorising it as the meat of cattle.

The Karnataka government did not introduce the Bill in the Legislative Council on Thursday as the BJP does not have the numbers there to overcome the Opposition by the Congress and JD(S). The state government is likely to promulgate an ordinance.

(With inputs from NDTV.)