Daijiworld Media Network - Mangaluru (SB)

Mangaluru, Jul 21: "Of late, cattle theft has become a common thing in the district. In the last one month, 21 cow theft incidents have come to light in Moodushedde area alone. At the same time, two incidents each at Ullal and Attavar have taken place,” said VHP leader Jagadish Shenava on behalf of Bajrang Dal (BD).

He was speaking in a press meet held here on Saturday, July 21.

“In Moodushedde, thieves killed the dog and threatened the owner of the cattle and members of his house with lethal weapons. 15 cows have been stolen from a same home situated at Mukkacherry in Ullal since eight years. This proves that district police have utterly failed to control the cattle thieves and functioning of illegal cow slaughtering centres. The failure of police has forced us to take care of the protection of cattle and its owners," he added.

Continuing his statement, Shenava said, "Earlier, we had made efforts to catch the thieves red-handed. However, the media and police accused us and said that our act is equal to moral policing. So we withdrew from catching the culprits of cattle stealing

“But now the situation has gone from bad to worse. We have lost faith in the police. The cattle thieves have started to steal the cows from the cow sheds directly. They are threatening the owners of the cattle by brandishing lethal weapons. So as an immediate measure, we are going to form ‘Gau Raksha Dal’ in every village of Dakshina Kannada (DK) district. Each unit will have 15 to 20 members and they will patrol their respected areas.

"On July 26, we are going to organize a rally to protest against the indiscriminate cattle theft in the district with a public gathering at Vamanjoor. The rally will start from Moodushedde at 4 pm. We expect around 3,000 people in the rally including all MLAs of the district. "

Bhujanga Kulal, Praveen Kuthar, Pradeep Kumar and Gopal Kuthar were present.