Rajasthan: Forest department razes gaushala in Alwar district, sparks outrage | Jaipur News
ALWAR: Over 400 cows became homeless after the forest department bulldozed a cow shelter (gaushala) at Maithna village in the district on April 21 with the help of local administration.
The department claimed that the shelter was an encroachment on its land for the past 10 years. However, the incident came to the light only after the demolition of a temple in Rajgarh became a national issue.
Jaipur Rural MP Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore raised the issue of razing the cow shelter at a press conference held in Jaipur on Saturday. “The demolition of the cow shelter is yet another attack on the majority community by the Gehlot government.
The locals protested the move calling it an attack on ‘Sanatan Dharmi’ and have threatened to call an indefinite strike until the shelter is rebuilt. “It is heartening to see cows and calves running for cover in the village and on the roads without any food. Most of the cattle are now starving to death. It is shameful that the government is collecting crores of money in the name of cows but is unable to provide them food and shelter,” said a local.
Most of the cows in the shelter are those rescued from smugglers. The locals have expressed fears that cows which are left in the open would be vulnerable to slaughter by cow smugglers.
This was the only operational cow shelter for almost a decade in the Kathumar subdivision, which was demolished by the forest department. The report says that the village has over 1400 bighas of forest department land. “The cow shelter was spread in 40 bighas. The strength of cows had swelled from 10 to 400 in the last 10 years. The assistant conservator of forests court, Rajgarh, issued a notice in December 2021 to vacate the cow shelter and transfer the land to the forest department but received no response from the operator,” said the source.
The cow shelter operator did not comply with the said notice. “The department was left with no choice but to run over the bulldozer on the encroached land,” said a source.
