On Friday, the Gujarat Assembly amended the cow protection law, which will now result in life imprisonment for the offenders.
The law, until now, stipulated a punishment of maximum 7 years of imprisonment.
The amendments include a fine up to Rs 1 lakh, and a permanent confiscation of vehicle used to transport cattle in. This law now makes Gujarat the toughest on cow protection, as Hindustan Times reported.
Chief Minister Vijay Rupani has made cow protection a central theme in his public speeches.
“We had fought a case in the Supreme Court to bring a law in Gujarat to save cows. Now, we want to make this law stricter. We will introduce a bill in the ongoing budget session of the assembly,” Rupani had said on 12 March at a function held in Junagadh, organised by Swaminarayan sect.
A significant number of Patels belong to this religious sect, and they are also the BJP’s crucial vote bank.
Social Media Reacts
Social media did not react kindly to this news. They pointed out how the punishment for rape isn’t as gruesome as the punishment for cow slaughter, and how killing the national animal, the tiger, is not as big an offence as slaughtering cows, among other things.
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