Take urgent steps to stop cow vigilantism, Supreme Court tells Centre and states

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Wednesday asked the Centre and the states to take urgent steps to stop cow vigilantism. The top court asked each state to appoint a senior police officer in each district as a nodal officer to take action against cow vigilantism.

Asking the government what measures have been taken to prevent cow vigilantism, the apex court said that both the Centre and states must take steps to stop cow vigilante groups from taking law into their hands or behave like law themselves.

However, the court stopped the petitioners from politicising the issue and said they should also file a petition questioning the large scale animal slaughter during Eid."You (petitioners) know how large number of



animals were slaughtered just a few days ago. You must also file petitions against it," the top court told the petitioners.

Appearing for petitioners, Indira Jaising and Colin Gonsalves said despite Centre's stand that it did not support cow vigilantism, there are growing number of incidents across India. Jaising argued that the Centre cannot wash its hands off the cow vigilantism issue by terming it a mere law and order problem. She said Centre had a constitutional mandate under Article 256 to direct the states to take appropriate measures to prevent cow vigilantism.Taking recent attacks into consideration, the bench asked chief secretaries of each state in consultation with DGPs to keep highways safe from cow vigilante groups.