Those involved in cow slaughter and illegal transport of milch animals for slaughter will now be booked under the stringent National Security Act and Gangsters Act in Uttar Pradesh, reports PTI.
The directive has been conveyed to all district police chiefs by the state Director General of Police (DGP) Sulkhan Singh.
Cow slaughter, trafficking now threat to national security? Those booked for suspicion can be detained indefinitely under NSA. UP leads way! https://t.co/Tivtll31Za
— Annie Thomas (@AnnieThomaz) June 6, 2017
A Government Order to ban cow slaughter and illegal transport of milch animals was passed during the previous Akhilesh Yadav government in the state but was never strictly implemented.
“NSA and Gangsters Act is to be invoked against those involved in cow slaughter and trafficking of milch animals for slaughter,” the DGP’s orders said.
Here is what the National Security Act and Gangster act state:
National Security Act:
The Act provides powers to the Central Government as well as the State Governments or even a Commissioner of Police or a District Magistrate “to provide for preventive detention in certain cases and for matters connected therewith”.
Under NSA, punishment is with imprisonment up to one year, or with fine, or both. The government can detain a person for as long as it wishes and the authorities need not disclose the grounds of detention.
Section 5 of the Act empowers the government to regulate the place and conditions of detention, enabling it to shift a detainee from one place to another anywhere in the country.
Section 7 of the act is to prevent the evasion of arrest. In this, the property of an absconding person can be attached by the State.
Sections 9 to 12 state that the government may constitute one or more Advisory Boards to review the grounds of detention of each case. However, the detainee cannot engage a lawyer to argue his case before the Advisory Board.
The Act also mandates that the Centre is informed within seven days about any case booked under sections of NSA.
Gangster Act:
A person booked under the provision of Gangsters Act becomes part of a gang listed in police records. It entitles the police to keep track of those booked under the Act and issue summons to them for attendance at the local police station for questioning even if no fresh case is lodged against them.
The Act permits the police to seek remand of an accused for a maximum of 60 days as compared to a maximum of 14 days under normal circumstances.
More teeth to gau rakshaks?
The directive comes against the backdrop of incidents in which ‘gau rakshaks’ or such organisations reach a spot where cow slaughter has taken place and cause traffic jams, assault people and indulge in arson.
Similar incidents have been reported about the illegal trafficking of milch animals in which ‘gau rakshaks’ damage vehicles and assault the driver.
The DGP has given directions to make police station in-charges aware about such trafficking and improve their intelligence networks.
The order comes amid a raging heated debate on the Centre’s notification which bans the sale of cattle for slaughter in market places.
The notification has triggered protests from various quarters, including the Kerala government and certain BJP leaders in Meghalaya.
(Feature Image Source: PTI)
