Pramod Mutalik slams BJP leaders for forgetting ‘Hindutva’ after winning

Belagavi, Jul 5: Sri Ram Sene will organise a Belagavi Chalo on July 8, against what it calls the State government’s tacit support to illicit cattle trade. Founder-president of the sene Pramod Mutalik said here on Thursday that illegal beef trade and cattle transport was rampant in the State and it had the tacit support of the State government. He told journalists that the sene will organise a rally in Belagavi and spread the protest to other parts of the State.

MLA Basanagouda Patil Yatnal will join the protest, Mr. Mutalik said. He criticised other BJP leaders, MLAs and MPs for not raising this issue which was vital to Hindutva. He said that the leaders had forgotten the principles that had brought them to power. Where are they now? he questioned.

He said that Shivu Uppar, a youth who committed suicide in the APMC Market Yard of Hire Bagewadi, was a cow protector and that he had been murdered by ruthless cow smugglers.

But the State government is not acting against the offenders. It is trying to scuttle the investigation of the death, he said.

He said that he had conducted his own investigation in the matter and was convinced beyond doubt that it was a murder and not a suicide. The victim had made a video before his death in which he has named cow smugglers. Why have they not been arrested? he asked.

“The police are passing it off as suicide. But that is not true. There is tremendous pressure on the Deputy Commissioner and Superintendent of Police to falsely state that it was a suicide,” Mr. Mutalik said.

He demanded that the Union government declare the cow as the national animal. “We need a docile domestic animal like the cow as the national animal and not a cruel wild animal like the tiger. The Union government should this immediately,” he said.