New Delhi: After BJP parliamentarian Yogi Adityanath’s demand that “action should be taken against Mohammed Akhlaq's family for eating beef”, his fellow-partyman and controversial MLA Sangeet Singh Som has made a somewhat similar demand.
Som has said that a case must be registered against the family of 50-year-old Mohammad Akhlaq, who was lynched by a mob in Dadri following rumours that he had slaughtered a cow, and should be sent to jail.
The demand from BJP leaders comes following a report from a forensic lab in Mathura, that said the meat seized from the case was beef and not mutton as an earlier forensic report had suggested.
Speaking to Economic Times, the first time MLA from Sardhana constituency in Meerut said that ‘he never termed Akhlaq's killing right, but actions must be taken against cow slaughterers too’.
“In UP, no one has the legal right to slaughter a cow or eat its meat. So a case should be registered under the relevant sections against Mohammad Akhlaq's family. It is true that Akhlaq died so you arrested people and sent them to jail. But now the people who slaughtered a cow, which is Akhlaq's family, should also be sent to jail,” he told the daily.
He also questioned the relief provided to Akhlaq’s family by Samajwadi Party government.
“These people (Akhlaq's family) were given multiple flats, Rs 1 crore in compensation. The compensation should be revoked. Why are cow slaughterers being compensated?” he questioned.
Som, who has been given clean chit in Muzaffarnagar riots, further lashed out at Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav for questioning the authenticity of the report that confirmed the meat recovered from the spot of the Dadri lynching belonged to a cow or its progeny.
Yesterday, Yadav had said that nothing objectionable had been found at the house of Akhlaq, who was beaten to death in Dadri’s Bishahra village following rumours of cow slaughter and beef consumption in September last year.
“Where was the sample sent, who received it? There was nothing objectionable in his house. Every eye is on this matter. Everyone wants that the victim’s family should get justice as a murder has taken place,” Yadav said.
The report by the Mathura-based forensic laboratory stated that the “sample belongs to cow or its progeny”. However, a report in Newslaundry points out that it does not make it clear where this sample was taken from.
India, being a union of states, has different laws for cow and cattle slaughter in different states. While some states have completely banned slaughter of cattle including bulls, bullocks and buffaloes, some haven't even banned cow slaughter. In total, there are eight states and Union Territories where cow slaughter and sale of its meat is legal, two states where slaughter is conditional and sale is legal. Other 26 states and UTs in India have banned cow slaughter.
