GURGAON: The Gurgaon Police has denied firearms licence to a self-proclaimed cow protector (gau rakshak) him a firearms licence, who had sought licence a year ago citing security threats he has been facing. Police said after refuting Dharmendra Yadav’s charges that gun licences were issued only after verifying the credentials of applicants. There is, they said, no such special provision for issuing licences to animal protectors. Dharmendra Yadav, 36, the chief of Gurgaon Gau Rakshak Dal citing threats from “armed” cow smugglers in the region, said he applied for a licence after he was allegedly attacked thrice by armed cow smugglers. He said, “The cow smugglers work in a group of 10 or more and are always armed. I have been attacked by them thrice, including once near my home in Manesar. That is when I applied for an arms licence or police protection”. He added, “But it has been a year since and I have no idea where my file is. I have also written to the police department, chief minister’s office and the office of the Union home minister in this regard”. Mr.Sandeep Khirwar, Commissioner of Police, Gurgaon said, no one was being deliberately denied a licence. “Whether or not we issue a licence depends on the credibility of a person and the requirement. The process is taken up on a case-to-case basis. There is no such rule according to which we deny or specially issue gun licences to animal protectors,” Khirwar said. There were some Police cases of vehicle thefts and fraud registered against Yadav in Mewat and Manesar, sources said. In the past, there have been incidents in which cow vigilante groups were attacked allegedly by cattle rustlers. Earlier on June 26, Amit Kumar, a member of cow protection wing in Gurgaon, was fired upon allegedly by cow smugglers in Pataudi area. Kumar and other vigilantes tried to stop a vehicle which they claimed was carrying a cow meant for slaughter. The incident occurred a day after two persons, including a Bajrang Dal activist, were shot and injured when they tried to stop some alleged cow smugglers on the Kundali-Manesar-Palwal expressway. Vikrant Yadav, a ‘cow protector’, was allegedly murdered on August 24, 2013, after he followed a group of cattle rustlers. On June 27, a video showed members of the cow protection group forcing two suspected beef smugglers to eat a concoction of cow dung, cow urine, milk, curd and ghee. Dharmendra Yadav, said volunteers, acting on a tip-off, intercepted a vehicle transporting “700 kg of beef from Mewat to Delhi” on the Kundli-Manesar-Palwal (KMP) Expressway and admitted that they had forced the two men — Rizwan and Mukhtiar — to eat cow dung,. ]]>
